The rules of friendship
It has recently been reported in the papers that the secret of personal happiness is to have at least ten friends. How lovely it is to have friends - to be loved - to have people to call on in your hour of need - to have such social support is obviously fabulous and I basked briefly in a warm glow of contentment, knowing that I indeed have at least ten friends.
I had to keep checking on my fingers because some of them I counted twice. These were mates who had seen me drunk and yet they still kept in touch. Then there were those who I could never even ring unless I was in full make-up and perhaps could only be classed as acquaintances, but I used the “Do I always remember their birthday and do they always remember my birthday” rule and usually they ended up in the group.
However then I looked at the word “happiness” and it occurred to me that it may be that it was not so much that their contact brought me personal happiness but that it made me forget my own troubles. Now you think what a sweet person I am - I worry about the well-being of all my friends. Oh no! It is more to do with the effort one has to put into the relationship in terms of being polite! When it comes to family members you can say what you like to them in the knowledge that they will probably forgive you in the end - because you love them but the love between friends is not so all encompassing. Hurt feelings will take much longer to heal and you cannot necessarily relax and say just what you think.
For example, one of my friends of thirty years standing has started to suffer from Hair Loss. She only has tiny wisps of hair over a large part of her crown but she had grown her remaining wispy grey hair down to her shoulders. When I met up with her the phrase ‘Absent minded professor’ kept screaming through my brain. “How well you look” I said. This was essentially true but “Aargh, What has happened to your hair?” is what I wanted to say. We sat down in the restaurant, the candle-light gleaming off her shiny pate “Aargh! What has happened to your hair” I wanted to say but what came out was “Shall we have a starter or go straight to the main course?” Finally she said that she was sadly beginning to lose her hair and that it was genetic and still I said “Oh I hadn’t noticed, I thought you were looking really well!”
So you see that night I did not give a thought to any of my own problems but if real happiness comes from honesty and truth, I failed.
June 26 2009 04:16 am | General