-1The first installment in my personal thinking, errr volume I suppose. No, series, that's it. As you can already tell I'm going to try and be as straight forward as possible no backspacing to erase thoughts or ideas. Remember this isn't a story, it's a view into my mind and a catalyst to get you guys thinking as well. Review if you want, I want to see what you guys think as well.

Friends

Such an interesting topic, yeah? I've always thought about their value and purpose never finding a definite answer. Now I bestow onto you this question.

What is a friend?

Well, Toxin, that's easy. A friend is someone you care about and vice versa.

Couldn't that also be a family member?

Well, no a friend is like, you know someone around your age who you can relate to and therefore grow close to.

You can't relate to someone older than you, or in your family?

Relatives can be friends too, Tox, stop saying that.

Alright, apparently you can't quite put into words what a friend is without it sounding slightly general (or at least I can't). Here's the dictionary meaning:

Somebody emotionally close to another: somebody who has a close personal relationship of mutual affection and trust with another

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Well that was easy, Tox, why didn't you do that from the start?

Because that was just a starter question, the real question is :

What makes a friend? What are their purpose? Etc.

Alright, now that we all know what a friend is let's think about our friends, well mine at least. I've got a few friends but for this I'll choose out just a few. They're all nice people, kinda. My problem is figuring out what makes a friend a friend. I've had several friends throughout my life thus far and I've been betrayed by several of them. At the time we were cool and had some fun. Why would one day one of them decide to spout personal info to everyone within a fifty foot area? It would hurt right, having that happen to you? I got over it, but as a result of these betrayals I've constantly become more aware of the people around me and realized noone is quite who they claim to be. Several of my friends have displayed different variations of themselves around different people and told me themselves that they edit themselves to the people around them. That makes me wonder: Are you my friend or an appropriate edit? If you're an edit could it be said that we were ever friends to begin with? In that case where does my "friend" stop and the real you begin?

Come on, Tox, they're you're friend. They've stuck with you through good and bad.

Bull, that's untrue. I can safely say that many friendly relationships are littered with fun and jokes, right? How many times has a friend said something as a joke that legitimately hurt? Can't name many, but when it happened it was bad, right? Having a friend means that you allow them to get closer to you increasing the chances of being destroyed by them, emotionally of course. If your friend says something to offend you, purposely for your own emotional harm, doesn't that hurt more than the old guy across the street calling you a hippie bastard? Therefore it's safe to say that friends can put you through, although not as many, worse times than they've helped you through simply because they're your friend.

-If that were true no one would be looking for friends, Tox. I happen to have found several good ones myself.-

Honestly, I don't know why friends are necessary. It's said that without interaction, your health can decline mentally, among other things. What do friends really do for you? Talk, hang out, help you every now and then. Unless you're in the business world or the like and your friends serve a specific purpose that's about it. When you're bored or in need you call them, when you feel like going out you go out with them. Isn't this the equivalent of using a person, or people, for personal pleasure or satisfaction? Isn't that normally seen as bad? Or is it mutual? We use other people under the unwritten promise that we can be used by them?

-No, you're not using them because they want to hang out too or they wouldn't care to.-

Good point. Though this isn't always the case, sometimes they agree simply because you're their friend. I've done this several times myself.

"I'm gonna stay inside and relax today"

"Wanna go to to hang out?"

"Sure why not."

I agree even though I know I won't gain anything and I'll just come home tired, which was the opposite of what I wanted to accomplish, I'll go anyway. Why? Because of the unwritten promise. Ever realize that your friend may ask you to hang with them and you say no and they say alright, when you come some other time to ask them to hang they'll probably say sorry I'm busy? This might not happen often and it may not be that excuse, but that's the gist of it. Otherwise they hang out with you to keep the promise alive ensuring that you'll be there next time they need you to entertain them.

-You make sense but it's all theory. This is based off of your experience, not ours.-

Absolutely right. But at the very start I said it's a view into my mind, and is only intended to get you thinking. Not everyone who reads this will agree, honestly I expect people to review and leave things arguing against me. Moving on.

Distant friends

I feel this needs it's own section, I love my friends to death (actually, I'm not sure if it's that serious.), but I have a few distant ones who get me kinda pissed because they're just that.

Distant friends just piss m off ya' know? I guess because they kinda break the unspoken promise (yes, it's unspoken now). You can never get in touch with them and when you do they're never quite there. It feels like the friend ship (purposeful space there) is moving in one direction and never quite coming back. It's like you can't quite have any control of the friend ship, their always at the wheel only sometimes stopping to turn around and address the crew that chases them so. Ok terrible analogy, really bad, but do you get the point? The rarely ever return your emails is probably a better way of putting it. I find that when you confront them about it they turn it around, see:

"Hey, Paul, we rarely ever talk what's up?"

"Sorry man, really. I've just been real busy, my boss has been laying a lot of work on my lately. I promise I'll try to catch up with you guys sometime, but right now I'm doing something so call me another time alright?"

That's what happens and then you're left sitting there feeling bad because you were made at them when it wasn't their fault. According to the unspoken promise, this friend has not technically broken any rules but they aren't upholding anything either. So when do you break it off? I don't know, a lot of people (myself included) would say don't worry about it, they'll come around. That's just optimistic bull, I've been waiting for like 2 years. Honestly I'm kinda scared to write this, cause if my distant friend reads this they'll know who they are and I might lose a friend over some hurt feelings. Oh well. Honestly I'm confused about distant friends, especially when they're good friends like mine.

To sum up, friends are strange. Their purpose can't quite be explained logically, like I try to do with everything. I hope this made you think about your friends and your relationships with them. I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but do it in a mature manner, I don't wanna see:

"OMG you bastard no wonder you don't have friendzzz!! You're always studing them omggmo!!"

I think fiction press is well above this, but I just feel it should be said. Remember This is straight out of my head and onto the CPU, so things may be scattered and awkward, please don't fret over it. I just wanted to keep my thoughts as pure as possible. Honestly, I think I did a terrible job on this, it probably doesn't do a good job of conveying what I really think, but I hope you get the point. I wish I had a quote about friends to end on, but whatever. Thanks for reading, I know it was easy reading my strange theories and thoughts. Tell me what you think!