FRIENDSHIP AN INTRODUCTION

One of the greatest aspects of our lives can be our friendships. If we are lucky we, our friends and ourselves, can develop long lasting, cherished and fulfilling relationships together.

What I would like to discuss in the next few upcoming blog entries are different types of friendships we develop in the course of our lives.


We have casual friendships, those people whom we may see several times during the course of a week but we are just exchanging pleasantries, hellos and surface conversation. These casual encounters can be at work, the grocery, the gym and so forth, but they never develop past that point. Why is that? Could it be the circumstances under which we meet that determine the level of friendship that develops or doesn't develop?

I know that I have sometimes had a casual friendship and it has progressed into a deeper friendship. Conversely, I have met people whom I thought I could or would become closer friends with but for whatever reason it didn't turn out that way.

When we meet a person for the first time, we as human beings, make an instantaneous judgment, or perhaps a better word would be evaluation, based first on their appearance. Sometimes we do not even formally meet the person, before the evaluation process begins. We simply see them visually and begin to form an opinion of that person.

I, for one, have made so many miscalulations in my first impression of another based solely on their appearance or on their actions. Why do we do this? It only stands to reason that they are doing the same things with regard to us, if they have even bothered to notice us at all.

In the next few blog entries I will be discussing lifelong friendships, how or why they develop and why the stand the test of time and longevity. I will also be talking about friends who have disappointed us, to the degree that the friendship deteriorated beyond repair, and thus ended.

Additionally, I will touch upon friends we have disappointed and the role we played in their disapproval or disappointment in us or our friendship together. I will be addressing friends who enter and exit our lives and the impact they played during certain periods of our lives.

Further, I will be detailing the various experiences I have had during the course of my leg loss, how that loss affects my friends and how they dealt or are dealing with my medical consequence.

I hope these next few blog writings will help us understand each other better and perhaps make us reexamine the role we play in each other's lives.