There was a time when I thought bonding with friends was easier. It sometimes may be. As kids we are close to family first, then as we grow up we make friends in school and our interactions are no more confined to the safe environment of the home. As teenagers we start experimenting more with the kind of friends we make. Those are probably the times one feels that people you are not related to are easier to bond with!
But as one grows older, it seems rather easier to catch up with family. Even with siblings, moving on and with changed priorities(both of yourself and of the other), it never feels like there was a total disconnect or awkwardness of meeting someone after a while. Even if we do not meet all the time, somehow there is something that keeps that bond intact. - catching up on phone or chat and other family members keeping you updated on everybody else, somehow you know. There is no need to prove that you care, and these are the people who knew you as kids and so they are kind enough to overlook your not so pleasing idiosyncrasies. All the time you spent quarreling with your siblings or arguing with your parents was an investment well made! This would have lead to enrichment of mutual knowledge bases - of which buttons trigger what kinds of reactions and such things.
I had a friend in school, who would easily forget her school friends because of the number of cousins she had , they made up for most of her friend circle. Even with all the technology around to easily connect, she is totally off my radar, and I am guessing she is happy in her own world filled with family, first and second and third cousins, it may be too much to deal with friends from the outside world. In my growing up years I felt, she was missing out since she was not networking enough with friends, but now I feel she may have done a very smart thing investing so much of time in extended family. Since these people would be sharing same social and cultural backgrounds as her and have a history of knowing each other for so long, it must be rewarding to have a close knit extended family.
Many of the friends I made, during my growing up years and then in college are only in touch on FB. It is so superficial to even be called friendships, given that some of these people were very close during those times. It is too time consuming to have too many close friends, I know. But what am saying is my set of close friends also kept changing over years. People get practical and bond more with people who are part of their day to day lives and it takes immense effort from both sides to keep a friendship alive if this is not the case. And then one day the closest friends turned out to be family! Since they were the closest for the longest amount of time! While the thought makes me sad that some of those friends seem no longer as close as they once were(I can bet, if we meet for lunch or dinner I can get along with each one of these friends like a house on fire, but how often does it happen is what makes me sad), its heartening to know that the same people whom I had taken for granted for so long, just because they are my family, continue to be giving, loving, caring and having me in their prayers.
But as one grows older, it seems rather easier to catch up with family. Even with siblings, moving on and with changed priorities(both of yourself and of the other), it never feels like there was a total disconnect or awkwardness of meeting someone after a while. Even if we do not meet all the time, somehow there is something that keeps that bond intact. - catching up on phone or chat and other family members keeping you updated on everybody else, somehow you know. There is no need to prove that you care, and these are the people who knew you as kids and so they are kind enough to overlook your not so pleasing idiosyncrasies. All the time you spent quarreling with your siblings or arguing with your parents was an investment well made! This would have lead to enrichment of mutual knowledge bases - of which buttons trigger what kinds of reactions and such things.
I had a friend in school, who would easily forget her school friends because of the number of cousins she had , they made up for most of her friend circle. Even with all the technology around to easily connect, she is totally off my radar, and I am guessing she is happy in her own world filled with family, first and second and third cousins, it may be too much to deal with friends from the outside world. In my growing up years I felt, she was missing out since she was not networking enough with friends, but now I feel she may have done a very smart thing investing so much of time in extended family. Since these people would be sharing same social and cultural backgrounds as her and have a history of knowing each other for so long, it must be rewarding to have a close knit extended family.
Many of the friends I made, during my growing up years and then in college are only in touch on FB. It is so superficial to even be called friendships, given that some of these people were very close during those times. It is too time consuming to have too many close friends, I know. But what am saying is my set of close friends also kept changing over years. People get practical and bond more with people who are part of their day to day lives and it takes immense effort from both sides to keep a friendship alive if this is not the case. And then one day the closest friends turned out to be family! Since they were the closest for the longest amount of time! While the thought makes me sad that some of those friends seem no longer as close as they once were(I can bet, if we meet for lunch or dinner I can get along with each one of these friends like a house on fire, but how often does it happen is what makes me sad), its heartening to know that the same people whom I had taken for granted for so long, just because they are my family, continue to be giving, loving, caring and having me in their prayers.
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