Relationships
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Whenever I say to my family that I have got a new friend in my life, nobody takes them seriously and all I get is a smirk... a mocking smirk. Ask Anis.. he'll give a big laugh. That eventually means "So is this the new flavour of the season ..?". Admitted that I haven't got any friend who was with me since my "chaddi" days... but I always acknowledge the people who walked into and away from my life, how much they had left an indelible mark, contributing some permanent changes in my personality. Most of the school & college friends have moved to different parts of the world, and it is natural for me to know, understand and get closer to people who are in physical proximity. But the friendships / relationships that survive the distance still continues even though the numbers are very meagre, still I don't complain. Because as far as friends concerned, the lesser is the merrier for me - I can give enough & complete attention to them. C'mon, somebody please take me & my friends seriously... Ha! Ha! Ha! There are other factors also.

 

Being a Gemini personality, there is a definite fluctuations in the tastes and preferences or in other words - a change in the personality. So it is quite natural to align and move closer with the people who are in tune with the preferences then. Say, right now my intrests are with Tanjore Paintings & Video editing, so I am more receptive to people who can talk about these things. Obviously anybody who keeps me engaged with these things get my attention priority now. But that doesn't mean discarding the old friends, but people who look from outside tend to mistake that I dumped the old friends. Sometimes even the friends concerned misunderstand that way, but whomever understood this facts stood with me.

According to me, all the relationships should move forward / grow constructively in passage of time. When the relationship starts, there is lot of conversation involved as there is a curiousity to know about others. Also there is a novelty factor that makes you feel exploring them, so there are many sweet nothing conversations. Once they move to the familiar terrain, you tend to continue the relationship only if you feel that this relationship can be taken further. Over the period of time the relationship matures and moves to the next level. At this stage, the time of conversations are shrunk and it is not needed to constantly keep yakking because of the familiarity you got. The problem here is that the "rate of maturity" is different for individuals. Also the 'sweet nothings' gets you bored after a while. When you feel that your friendship has now moved to next level, your partner might be still in the first stage, so demanding sweet nothings / long conversations constantly. I have noticed that any relationship that needs constant cooing on the partner's ears are always doomed to fail. So until and unless you find any conversations "intresting" or "engaging", your reluctance for the long chats makes your partner allege that you had lost intrest, without realising that according to you the relation had already moved to an another plane. Few of my friendships couldn't survive this stage and withered over the period of time.

I am just writing this because I have seen many of my friends' spouses cribbing that the initial freshness and vigour of the marriage was not there after an year of marriage. For them I always used to say what I had discussed above. Admitted that a good deal of talking is a must in every relationships, but the conversations should have some substance to sustain the intrest or be constructive. Any kind of negative comments, that are made to grab the attention, will definitely affect the relationships. Over a period of time, all the negative thoughts originally intended to grab the attention, becomes a belief that the spouse is being neglected intentionally. Just like the elders say "A marriage is not something that is only consumatted in bedroom, but a matter of understanding and compassion", the friendship also works on the same principle. "A friendship is not something that is measured by the time spent together, but that can be counted on which time your friend will be there for you". Once your relationship reaches that maturity level, you'll never feel the stress of 'proving' the relationship.

It had been a long time I had physically met some of my friends - Prabhu, Ananya, Preetha, even my cousin Prakash and we don't interact on daily basis. Sometimes we call once in a bluemoon, but the relationship between us is so strong / matured that the moment we start speaking, it is always like the continuation of the last conversation. The distance / time have no effect on us. But some friends who didn't understand this had moved on accusing that I am ruthless despite the fact that I had been deeply hurt by the allegations, but (these days) I don't exhibit it. I have imbibed somethings from each friend who walked in and out of my life, so there is no question of forgetting them. "Men may come and go... but my life keeps going on"!!!