Friendships. Should a friendship take a lot of hard work to maintain, or should it be easy?

Think back to childhood, you didn't seek friends, they were just there.  I'm 75 and still have a couple of friends that I have had since infants school.  Sometimes we don't hear from each other for a year or two, but I know they are there, and it is a delight when we do meet.

Real friends get in touch if they haven't heard from you for quite a time.  They are INTERESTED, they want to know what's happening.

This site is great - many new "friends" who are interested and help if and when they can.

Greetings from Constance

Yes I agree friends should never feel like they are hard work. I do belief that all friendships take some effort to maintain for example it would be unfair if you only waited for your friends to call but never call them.

I think it depends on how much you value a friendship as to how much you are willing to put up with. With this in mind I would consider they saying “You cannot make old friends”. Maybe you just need to pull away from this friend for a while. If they are truly an old friend, separation by time should calm the situation.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Gloria

Constance, Gloria and you have really said all that needs to be said on friendship. It's as easy as the air we breath and unlike a motor car needs no maintenance. Friends are there for mutual enjoyment daily, yearly, intermittantly.

There is one sort of friend you have not mentioned. It is the couple-friend.  These are even more rare than friends, friends I say and not aquaitances. Yes the couple where each is a friend of my wife and I as a couple and each of us is a friend of the other two as a couple. That is the only difference. For the rest we can meet frequently or intermitently with extended gaps. We pick up with ease and pleasure. My wife and I have only had two such couple-friends in over 50 years. Sadly both couples have been broken by cancer. We do not expect to meet another couple-friend. We have had a generous supply of this rare friend.

A good subject, I get a lot of people on these forums that I have helped them to get various benefits, and what to expect in hosptals when having such tests done. So many say I am such a friendly person, and the way I have helped them was very clever and good.

I have had plenty asking to add them on Facebook - TBH, I think Facebook in itself is an over rated drama channel, you may as well watch a soap on TV!  The sort of things you see on there are like 2 people they sit in the same roon and call each other names on Facebook, then others join in......that to me it is pointless, and broadcasting over the internet!

I have had many friends over the years, but as time moves on, friends have died - even school friends have been in major accidents, others have had diseases that killed them, others have committed suicide. Others have died of drug overdoses, alcohol poisoning, trafiic accidents, etc. Now, I do not know of a single person I used to go to school with, but I moved many years ago.

But, I am a person that is easy going and down to earth, I guess it's my personality - This may sound strange but I have friends, that I speak to that find me fascinating and say to their own friends that they know a guy who is very clever and knowledgeable perhaps you should meet him. They find me interesting and can talk to me about anything, and I can give them accurate information.

As for friends, and including the aforementioned I guess I make new friends easily, many ask to see me again or even ask me to join them for a drink, bear in mind I don't drink alcohol at all, which they understand.

I suppose in a way when people first meet me in a wheelchair, they cannot comprehend that I'm disabled but this is basically physically only and does stop me from doing many things. Mentally, and if I was not as many drugs as I am currently taking a day, people would understand that I do what every other person on the planet does, and that is increase what they know. I know some people have bad memories, I do get memory blocks myself - yet the information is still within me.

Because I am very clever with maths, I can take news articles, apply mathematic equations to them and then cross-reference data to come up with answers to ways that no one else has ever known. Some people I meet are mesmerized by what I can do. But I have to be literally in the right frame of mind.

I like George on these forums, he has been through a lot, like many of us - I find his articles interesting, and the same applies to Kath. Two people I look up to and class as very good friends on these forums and there are others but I find these two particulary interesting, more so because they are stateside, which is one place I have always wanted to visit - but this to me is just a dream.

Regards,

Les.