Bewitched for Life

During our school days, we were taught this old rhyme, Make new friends, keep the old! One is silver and the other is gold! Needless to say, we are always on the lookout for new friends, friends in need and friends in deed! We hold the pre-requisites of the kind of friends we are looking for, and look around for the one who would fit into our bill. It is not easy to find the kind of person who would fulfill all our criteria. Unfortunately there are very few computers with all the adequate data, which can give the name, address and contact telephone number of our soul-mates, to whom we would feel drawn at the very first sight! It may happen in the future, but in that case we all may lose the chance of meeting the perfect friend of our choice.

Unfortunately there is no shortcut to choose friends; we always have to start with trials, and some may reveal enduring, while others may drop out of our lives too soon. True friendship can flower forth between two persons only when both the minds find a common meeting place, of interest, of aspiration, of dream. Once the two persons begin to share their dreams or interests, they begin to take interest in the other person too. But the search for friendship is often a game of luck; sometimes we may win, and at other times, we may lose miserably. We may like the company, while the other person may not. The other person may only like to make use of us for his/her own benefits, and may move out of our lives when the job is done.

I often become suspicious of the friendships which flower forth too soon; they are like the flowers which shoot up all of a sudden, and they may also wither all too suddenly. Any person who is frantically looking for a friend to fill the vacuum created by the leaving of another, may end up with catastrophic results. We cannot go looking for a friend, but often good friends cross our ways, and at one moment our eyes may meet theirs, and there may be non-verbal communication between the day. I have realized that in many lasting friendships, the relationship had begun long before we began to talk to each other, and share information on our past, present and future. Sometimes it had taken even months, if not years before we began to roll the ball.

I am quite selective in accepting persons as friends, for every friendship entails certain amount of commitment, though the degree of commitment is quite different from those that expressed between married persons, and between God and religious persons. While I establish a commitment with the person who begins to share my life, as it were, I do not demand or expect the other person to stick to me by force. There cannot be true friendship existing under pressure; there should be mutual freedom on the part of both the parties to walk out, and seek a more suitable person as companion or friend. Perhaps this is one of the pre-conditions of true friendship.

It is no wonder then that I cannot remember anyone who went out of my life bitter, because I drove him or her from being friends. Circumstances had forced some to bid adieu, and at other times family ties and other social conditions had put a fullstop to our deep friendship, but I had always been enriched by every friendship that I had cherished down the years, and am grateful to God for all of them. Even the first intimate friend who had graced my life some 17 years ago, is always there at the corner of my heart, as I pray for her health and wellbeing, as she continues to live her life, even non-communicating to me for the past 13 years. Did I not tell that true lasting friendships go beyond all time and space?