New friends are amazing, aren’t they? They give you time, attention, focus… ah yes, that’s what you’ve been craving. Focus. You find in them the things you forgot that you loved about yourself. You see, we are in such close proximity to ourselves all the time, so we often can’t recall what makes us uniquely us, what we project to others, and what we used to see in ourselves that we smiled about. New friends, in the “discovery phase,” help us to tap into that because they see it for the first time. They are amazed by it, and they re-share that amazement with us, helping us experience a sense of deja vu… about ourselves. Weird, but true. It’s why new friendships are all we can think about while they’re happening. It’s the ones that last, those are the ones we lose sight of, when we forget how fresh and new those used to be, once upon a time.
Fairy tales start like that, you know. Once upon a time. At the beginning we see the hero/heroine before all the trouble happened, because you know there’s always trouble in paradise once those tales get rolling. She was a regular girl living a regular life with some animal friends who just happened to talk, and a boy she pined after but who didn’t know she existed. Until the monster captured her in its clutches, and the prince has to rescue her. But before all of that, she was frolicking, right? She was existing in an Eden that was not of her making, but one that made her happy to be alive nonetheless. That’s how new friendships start out, before we get lost in the clutches of growing pains.
Yes, friendships have those same growing pains that we as individuals have when going through “the change,” whatever that happens to consist of for you or for me. There comes a point right after the honeymoon period when we’ve seemingly run out of exciting things to say, and we don’t want to talk about the weather. We’re friends, after all, close ones at that. So, do we dig deep or wait it out and realize later that we do have more to say? Or do we just let the friendship drift and drown, sucked down by the undertow we ourselves created when we were churning up the waters mere moments before? It is in dealing with these growing pains that we can either advance, adjust and acclimate, or we can deny, refrain, and denigrate. Those words don’t sound happy, and they’re not. Believe me.
It’s all about keeping the friendship fresh, not letting it stagnate due to the pressures of this vast world in which we live, even when we aren’t talking every day like we used to when we first found each other. We need to grow with the friendship and adjust when it shifts, letting it move us along without getting drowned. It’s a give-and-take, not just a knight in white armor being chivalrous. We all have something to give to each other, otherwise it’s not a friendship but a dictatorship, an oligarchy even. Find that fresh thread you can pull, and see where it leads you. You never know.
…and they lived happily ever after. Isn’t that how the fairy tales usually end? The prince and his bride sail off into the sunset holding hands and looking gladly into their future. New friendships are exciting and all, but that’s how I want to see them go, how I want to see them grow. Being content enough with that other person to not need all the bells and whistles, all the frills. Just having someone to share the ups and downs with, to sail off into the proverbial sunset with, that’s the ultimate. Did you know that most friendships outlast relationships at a 9-1 clip. That means they’ll be there, but you have to be there together. Don’t always monopolize your conversations. Don’t let silence wear you out. Sometimes friends need silence. It may not be new, but it should be comfortable. And isn’t that what sailing off into the sunset together is all about?
Sam
Sam's Online Journal 
Everything that you said in here was so true.
Everyone gets excited when in the honeymoon phase of anything – where you spend your time trying to figure out the ins-and-outs of a new person. And it’s so funny because I’d never even thought about the reverse of that mentioned at the beginning of this. I’d never realized that it can make you rediscover yourself, in ways.
You and I have had a few brief conversations about friendships and whatnot, and I thought I’d done my fair share of contemplating over them and what they do, how they evolve, etc. But I don’t know that I’ve ever given much thought to the ‘new friend’ and what sort of effects new friends have on one another. Maybe I always get too caught up in the NEW FRIEND! mindset that I haven’t let myself think about it. But reading this made me do some quick thinking on the matter and I’ve just discovered that it gives people a big boost of self-esteem – a person thinking they’re interesting enough to waste time on, or that their thoughts/opinions/interests are … well… interesting.
I loved the little fairy tale, and isn’t it so true?
You know enough about my thoughts on friendship to know that I think we as a society don’t give enough time (or receive it, either) to the people that we care about. It’s funny because my friend wrote a blog on things of this nature yesterday (well, the lack of genuine communication in our world)…
I think we should all make a little more of an effort to ensure our genuine connections with other people don’t become frayed or severed. But it IS disheartening to feel like your efforts are one sided. Hmm.
I’m currently having a feeling of mind-being-blown and believe that I need to do some contemplating.
I completely agree, cnmill. It is our responsibility as friends to be there for each other when needed, but also to spend time together or send each other missives, just to say we are here. We care. Too many people let friendships go to the wayside after that honeymoon period.
Glad I could blow your mind. 🙂