Friends ^-^

What makes a person your friend?

It's a fairly simple question, but in it lies a much wider set of questions.

Is it someone you can divulge secrets to? Is it someone who you can phone late at night when you've hit an emotional downer? Should it be a real person? Do internet friends count? What is the difference between someone you know and a friend?

Let's take Bee. I've known her for quite some time, but we've only been close friends for just under a year. I call her my friend, for the following reasons:

~ we discuss everything from period pains to work
~ we bum smokes from each other
~ we know, just by looking at the other person, what they're thinking
~ we can't last more that a day or two apart
~ we can, with honesty, judge what is good and what is bad for the other person
~ we shop
~ we gossip
~ she brings out the girly girl in me
~ and we can work and party together

now some of the other girls I know, I would not be able to do all the above with, even though I really KNOW them. As in, really in REAL life. I can tell you their biggest fear and their fondest memory.

But one does get different types of friends. The intimate ones, like Lea, Bee and Lou and the get together ones that you only see at a braai or when going out.

Then there are the internet friends. I met Vicky on myspace several years ago. We know quite a lot about each other. Probably as much as I know about my three wing-girls. But I just can't call her a close friend. The reason being that we haven't spent time together in person.

The face to face thing is extremely important to me. Two things: body language and mannerisms. These are two of the things that make people people. It's the tiny things they do that set them apart.

I once wrote an extensive letter to a person I was quite interested in about their mannerisms after the person asked me what made me have an interest in them.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe words, whether spoken or typed, is all that matters. Maybe one can even have a long distance electronic love affair with someone you've never met...
Although, you'll never get a cuddle or a kiss out of that. :P

In closing,
The things that make friends friend is who they are. And there are so many aspects of each person that sets them apart from the standard everyday creature, that you cannot just count on them as the people you divulge your secrets to.

Besides, do you even tell all your secrets to all your friends?

“We are friends and I do like to pass the day with you in serious and inconsequential chatter. I wouldn't mind washing up beside you, dusting beside you, reading the back half of the paper while you read the front. We are friends and I would miss you, do miss you and think of you very often.” - Jeanette Winterson