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Friends, acquaintances or none of the above?
Is there a another category of people with whom we know or interact? Friends, acquaintances or none of the above?
I have a strained relationship with friendships, and I am questioning my understanding of them. Just as in the mid ages, you are supposed to question and shake things up a bit; this too comes on the list of those things that need a relook.
Who is a friend, as far as I know? Someone who knows you and, most times, understands you and would do anything for you. There are three aspects here: knowing and then understanding and being ready to be with you. All these are dependent on me as they are on the other.
Knowing someone depends on how much you are prepared to expose yourself to the other. This is dependent on how comfortable and trustworthy you feel about being vulnerable. So, this is a never-ending cycle of insufficiency most of the time. Or you take a chance of being vulnerable and feel betrayed by the other. So then you learn from the mistake and move the person to someone who had known once but not anymore. Is there also a factor of fear that comes with being vulnerable? Once vulnerable, it is always dependent on the other how the other uses the information. Either he is a sink of it all, or there are reactions to it by the other which might be more like not agreeable for both. Or it could bring out a…