on friendships

“Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent. It is more than the government. It is almost equal to the family.” - Don Vito Corleone (The Godfather)

People with friends who turn into a family are the rarest. They are the people who understand the real meaning of human relationships. People with good friends are common. People who have few friendships for a lifetime are rare, but you will see them more often than not. But rarely those lifelong friendships turn into friends where they become family. You don’t realize when those friendships turn into family. Like every other beautiful thing in relationships, it also takes time and effort. But it happens. Friendships in childhood have the same taste as this.

Friendship is something that is quite hard to explain. It's not a blood or love relationship, but you will be right there for each other. Nor is there any mutual benefit in that, still whatever is theirs is yours. It is a really vague and sort of weird thing. You won't talk to your best friend for 6 months, and when you do it feels like you met them yesterday. Sometimes it feels like these people were just sent by God to add icing to the cake of your life. And sometimes, the same people show you what kind of people hell is filled with. The navigation of a human's social life is very interesting.

Humans are social animals. Building relationships is an innate trait. Nobody remembers their net worth, achievements, or power on their deathbed. They want to be with the most important people in their life, at that moment. 

I am sure you have lots of social relationships. Your neighbor, your school friends, common friends, and millions like that. But how many meaningful relationships you have outside of your family. Now, a meaningful relationship may mean something else to you. Because there are lots of factors that come into play. But you can imagine whatever that meaningful relationship looks like in your head. 

Most people underestimate the power of meaningful relationships. Humans are good animals. At least, most of the time. People are good to each other because they want others to be good with them. Or they know how cruel the world already is and it costs $0 to be kind. To the extreme end of this, are people pleasers. They want to show the other person their best perfect imagined self. Of course, that's necessary to a certain extent. But they forget to get rid of that trait when needed, especially when making meaningful connections and relationships, to be exact, building friendships.

People who spent more time on social media are having a hard time building deep meaningful relationships. As Simon Sinek, says in this video, people nowadays are not turning to people in hard times. But they turn to social media, their devices, & the internet as a coping mechanism. If you are in a social gathering, using your phone to text someone who is not there at that present moment, is a subconscious signal of not giving much damn about the people who are there with you. It shows that you don’t value the most meaningful thing in the world, i.e. human beings.

In order to build a good connection, per se, they forget to connect with another person on a human level. Their self-imagined ideal self is talking with another person. Of course, you do NOT have to connect with every single person you meet on a human level. But you have to be smart enough to differentiate where you have to and where not. The most absurd thing I have seen is friendships on social media. Not actual friendships, but the portrayal of it on an extremely superficial level. On Instagram, a group of friends has wonderful, most beautiful, happiest pictures in the world where everyone is happy, they are having fun, chilling, and having a great time. But in real life, they haven't even talked to each other's parents once, they don't meet unless there is a party, they walked past each other last time they met each other outside, etc. Now, these things could differ accordingly, but the underlying emotion behind action holds the same.

But that's not a problem. People first have to lie to themselves in order to lie to others. The problem starts when other people start buying that dream. They see that these people have the best friendships in the world and make themselves feel inferior after watching the perfect, ideal lives of people on social media. Now, there is a void inside the people watching it. And they have already made a decision, that this void will be filled only and only by this dream, that was sold to me on Instagram. This most random guy on the planet on Instagram is having fun with his friends. Or at least, showing the audience so. Now, a girl or a guy who doesn't have a concept of friendship starts to believe that this is how "best friends" look like, This is how real friends hang out and have fun. That this is the ideal friendship. An image of an ideal friendship is created in the mind of a person.

No surprise, why the concept of having 'internet friends' is super popular. Especially after the pandemic, when you were forced to not meet other people and socialize. I mean, you are forcing humans to not socialize, duh. I believe you can have internet friends. And you must. But you gotta understand what is your purpose behind it. One could be, I don't have many intellectual or maybe programmer friends in real life of my age. So, I'll look up online forums, etc. and be friends with them to learn from them. That’s just one example. It’s great, when you have friendships in your real life and have a purpose for having 'internet friends'.  The Internet is awesome. Of course, you should leverage it. But it is a major problem when you don't have real-life friends or you have not put any effort into building meaningful relationships with your peers. And now you are seeking that feeling online, in the world of anonymity, numbness, and least humane. That doesn't sustain in the long run.

Once you start your own journey in the world, friends become an integral part of your life. For some people, it starts early, for some it's a bit late. But it does for most humans. Now they can't go to their family to fill that emotional void inside. Because they stepped out of the house to conquer the world, right? They think looking vulnerable in front of those people will make them weak and submissive in front of family. 

Maybe, I am able to articulate these feelings and thoughts because I have experienced following to a certain extent only. There are an infinite number of experiences left to gain. But I will be coming back to this post to know how much my view on friendship has changed over the years. But I think so many people don’t experience the real taste of friendships at an early age, especially in the suppressed, conservative societies, where vices are directly associated with the social atmosphere and life. You have to design your environment accordingly to gain those experiences, or in some cases, be a rebel. Whatever works best in your case. But just do it and gain wonderful experiences. Also, when you are on an unconventional path, you are mostly alone. Instead, you have people or situations pulling you back and stopping you. Sometimes, having people who believe in you, whom you can reach out to in your tough times are super helpful. These people help you when you are not there for yourself and when you're on the brink of quitting, they make you realize the true power and meaning of human relationships.

Thanks a ton to Angel for providing feedback, honest thoughts, and improvements on drafts of this.