Friendship is something that I have always found to be very interesting. The other day I was out for lunch with a guy friend of mine, and in the booth across the restaurant from us was a group of young men. I talked to my friend and told him that I had never understood why guys need friends. To me, friends are people that you spend time with, and you share all the ups and downs of life and have deep emotional talks with at any hour of the day. He said that this was why I was so confused, and that I must be thinking of how women value their friends and thinking that men think the same way.
He pointed out the obvious, that men and women are very different. It never really occurred to me that men might view their friends very differently than women do. Perhaps this is because my male friends tend to step into the emotional side of things with me because I have a female mindset and that is just how things end up working out. Either way, it was very enlightening to hear what he had to say. I mentioned that guys don’t really seem to have much need for emotional support, from what I have experienced. The idea of guys having all these friends, whom they value so much, didn’t really make sense to me. I didn’t know why guys’ friendships seemed to be so important to them. He told me that guys put a lot of value in their friends, usually above most other relationships. I asked him what guys see in each other on a friend level. He answered, saying that friends push each other to their limits. They are there to have adventures and go through life together. This made things a lot clearer.
He pointed out the obvious, that men and women are very different. It never really occurred to me that men might view their friends very differently than women do. Perhaps this is because my male friends tend to step into the emotional side of things with me because I have a female mindset and that is just how things end up working out. Either way, it was very enlightening to hear what he had to say. I mentioned that guys don’t really seem to have much need for emotional support, from what I have experienced. The idea of guys having all these friends, whom they value so much, didn’t really make sense to me. I didn’t know why guys’ friendships seemed to be so important to them. He told me that guys put a lot of value in their friends, usually above most other relationships. I asked him what guys see in each other on a friend level. He answered, saying that friends push each other to their limits. They are there to have adventures and go through life together. This made things a lot clearer.
Whether male or female, we all need friends. Going through life alone is not what humans were made for. I am a very independent person, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I don’t need friends. I don’t have a lot of friends, but that is primarily because I have been hurt a lot, and I find it difficult to open up and trust people. Something I have experienced recently is that vulnerability forces one to trust. Trust is a key element to friendship, whether between males or females. I think one way that we sell ourselves short is when we hold things inside. We are afraid to make ourselves vulnerable for fear of rejection or judgment, but what does that get us? Lonliness. Sadness. Pain. Why should we have to carry these burdens alone? There is really no reason why we should be sad or lonely. All we have to do is reach out and let another person know how human we really are. I personally find it so refreshing to tell someone how I have been feeling about something that has been weighing on my mind and my heart. It brings such an incredible feeling of release, and it leads me to wonder why I ever waited so long to say something in the first place.
Friends catch each other. They catch each other when they fall down, and help them get back up again. It sounds so very cliché, but that is something very serious. Something that we all need. I have gone through a lot in my life, as I have said, and I believe that I have gone through more pain than necessary, simply because I have kept so much of my pain a secret. I wonder how much better I would feel by now if I had told someone years ago what I waited until today to say. There is no use asking “What if?” really, because I can’t change the past. The only thing I can do now is change the future. Make it brighter. Make it happier and a lot less lonely. Not only will this affect my emotional state of being, but whoever I choose to have as my friend, I hope that it will affect their lives for the better as well.
Thanks for "listening."
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