Friends

24 April 2013|

My topic today is: FRIENDS

We all have friends and I am sure we are all a friend to someone else too. We have some old friends and some new friends. Some close friends and some acquaintances. Some party friends and some deep conversation friends. Some good friends and some bad friends. And as we go through life, these friends come and go and change as we do and life does. It is all part of growing up and life experiences. 

As I have gone through life, I have noticed these changes, experienced the fun and joy the good friends and happy times have brought and also the tears and heartbreak that a destructive friendship have brought too.



I started off life with family friends – friends that I kinda had to be friends with because our parents were friends. I was too young to make friendship based choices and I played with these friends on fields and in play rooms but there was no deeper meaning. Just sweet, immature and innocent fun! I still know these friends and have the odd comment or like on facebook but they are no longer friends.

I then started primary school and started making my very own friends. I was mixed with many different girls (single sex school) and as I sat next to them in class, played sport with them and had fun on the school playground – I made my own decisions based on the fun I had, how nice they were to me and common interests. These were my first, true friends. As the seven years of junior school went by, I had one best friend and a group of close friends who I socialised with on weekends – sleepovers and birthday parties. As young and immature girls do, we chose our friends and refused to share them – you had to have one best friend and there was a bond between two girls that could not and would no be broken. This immaturity forced me to believe that we would be best friends for life. And so we chose the same high school.
In high school, I received a huge surprise where my grade of fellow scholars increased from 45 girls to 145 girls and the pond became bigger and deeper for everything – my circle of friends, my level of academics and my sporting availability. I had a lot more people to contend with. Thankfully, my eyes were opened to so many more interesting girls and personalities and naturally more bonds were formed. I no longer had one best friend, I had several close friends. Our social circle got bigger, as did our social lives. We learnt who liked to watch movies, who liked to go clubbing, who would be there in good times and bad. Mid high school, our circle of friends and another circle merged and we became a whole bunch of us. we shared some classes, we sat together during lunch break, we met on weekends to straighten or curl hair, apply make up, impress boys and dance the night away. We spent days shopping and prepping, we spent nights talking for hours. We were all good friends. Again, we were warned by a very wise Accounting teacher that when we finished school, life would change – it was hard to believe, why would we not be friends for life?



My first few years after school involved studying at a private university/college and starting to work so I was introduced and exposed to a whole new group of friends – boys and girls, from different schools and backgrounds, studying different degrees. It amazed me how I started to become friends with girls that I had always seen as competition or not very friendly during school because they were from other schools and on other teams. Now at university, we were all the same fish in one big pond, and they were very nice people. 

I started working at a young age (straight out of school whilst studying part time) and I made friends that were quite a bit older than me and from different cities and jobs. As I grew up and moved on, I lost school friends along the way. We soon learn when leave our school gates, that the paths of our lives are all different and there is a bigger world out there. We learn that some relationships and friendships mature and bloom with age and experience and some just don’t make sense anymore…

After ending a destructive long term relationship, I lost and gained some old and new friends. I lost many mutual friends who chose to pick sides and I gained many new friends who saw the light with me and chose to enjoy a newer and happier life with me. I also spent more time with single friends as I needed and wanted to get out and about and hit the social scene again – after all, I was turning 21 and loving life! I had an awesome group of friends to socialise with, go on holiday with, drink and dance with and stay up all night with…

I then met MC and again, my circle of friends grew. I met and got along with all of his friends and their girlfriends. I spent time with these new girls, went on holiday with them, went out with them and spent time with them even when MC moved back overseas. Some of them became true friends and some became social friends. 



After years of flourishing and failing friendships, I have learnt a lot about friends and the different types of friends that i have and will have. I have learnt…

  • Some friends are for now and some are forever.
  • New friends can be made at any stage of your life.
  • More friends never means the better friends.
  • Distant makes no difference with true friends, it just makes you miss them more.
  • Close friends can have opposite personalities.
  • Boys and girls can be friends.
  • You can travel with some friends, and you can’t travel with others.
  • You can live with some friends, and you can’t live with others.
  • You can trust friends around your other half (and if you can’t, they are not friends).
  • Friends let you have other friends.
  • You will meet mommy friends when you have a baby.
  • You can’t trust all your friends.
  • It’s ok to argue and disagree with friends.
  • There are some friends that you will speak to every day.
  • There are some friends you will only speak to once a month.
  • You have friends that will only be there during the good times.
  • And some that thrive on the bad times.
  • You have friends that will talk behind your back.
  • You can have friends 5 years younger than you.
  • You can have friends 10 years older than you.
  • You have friends that will be jealous of you, and friends that you will envy too.
  • You can have many many many friends.
  • But you will only ever have a handful of true, best friends.
What have you learnt about friends?
Do you have these friends?
Which friend are you?
Which friend am I?
x

0 Comments

  1. Such a good post. And it's so true about the different friends.

    I know that I am the very loyal friend and the one that will take the punches and always give you a second chance. I am not the party friend but I am also not the "come cry on my shoulder" friend. I am the practical friend and the one who will get things done.

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I'm Caley a thirty-something wife & mummy from Durban, South Africa. Ellie Love Blog is all about me, my family and our beautiful life.

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