A Theory of Friends
I have a theory of friends. It goes like this: With the right group of people, it doesn't matter which restaurant you eat, or where you hang out. Wherever you go will be a great time. With a mismatched set of people, you can go to the fanciest restaurants and the best coffeeshops and bars, but it won't help a bit.
I remember back in the late 90's, I went out with a group of guys from the office one Friday night. We went to StreetLife Glorietta, Makati, a popular yuppie hangout where you can order food, drink beer, and watch a live band. Although I liked those guys, it just wasn't working out. We were boring each other. Our group was mutually incompatible with each other.
We tried to "fix" it by going to another place, the local starbucks, where we had coffee and tried to start up some stimulating conversation. But it wasn't going anywhere. In a desperate ploy to salvage the night, one of us suggested we stoppover at this street food stall before going home. Didn't work either. I went home feeling empty and sorry that the night was lame.
Contrast that to a night spent with a group of close friends. We stayed at this Burger King which had unlimited drink refills. We stayed there for four hours, I consumed a record number 6 orange carbonated soda. That night was a blast! We talked about all sorts of things. Life, problems, work, past, future, which type of burger was the best, etc.
The place is unimportant, it is the people you are with that matters.
There are many things I still can't figure out regarding my theory of friends. Why is it that some people you want to be friends with just don't work out. It could be that you are incompatible, or that there is a lack of respect or trust, or just something missing. No magic. But you meet a new person for the first time and instantly you know you can be friends with that person. And usually those friendships last a lifetime.
I have been extremely fortunate to meet the right friends at crucial points in my life. Lifelong friends. My problem is not expending enough effort to keep in touch with them. Call it laziness or overconfidence, but I really need to invest more time and effort to keep the friendships going. There's probably something more to this theory, but I haven't figured it out yet.
posted by robdelacruz @ 2:24 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
what does a 30 something old guy to do for friends. people my age are mostly married, attached, or have gone and lived to other places. so i find my commonality with people who are younger.
i dont go out anymore. the malls or the cafés, posing or looking around at the beautiful people, arent that interesting. my friends at work who are considerably younger dont go out either. no money. or theyre mostly busy at nights. we occasionally go out of town. trips to the malls are now reserved for lunch or for playing arcade games.
>what does a 30 something old guy to do for friends.
(this deserves a longer article which I plan to write about)
Age probably doesn't have much to do with it. I believe there are certain segments in time where you are intensely connected to friends, and times when you are isolated. For us, the golden age was during '96 - '99 back in the weserv time. I was able to artificially extend it for several years after 2000 but I could sense the kinship was dying as some of the people couldn't get along (jeth, grace, mr. calupig), and some were probably looking to move on.
But I look at Crab's group who gets along nicely as 30-somethings living in the present. It reminds me of those weserv days. So my theory is that the chronological age of being 30-something or 20-something is mostly irrelevant. It is who you are with, and what state of mind you and the people around you have at the moment.
Married friends - I remember my father told me he stopped keeping track of his friends right around the time he got married and had kids. Which is one of his regrets, so he thinks it's good that I still keep in touch with old guys from college and high school. The convential wisdom is that getting married is like starting a new life, but actually it's just a continuation of your normal life. I know married friends who act different after they are married, and I know a few married people who essentially stay the same and where the friendship still continues. There are also those who get married as a form of insurance to make sure that someone will take care of them on their deathbed, but that is another discussion.
My prediction is that if we were both in the same area, we would hang out, and perhaps have a different set of 'regulars'. But it would be different from the '96 - '99 era, a different set of topics and problems. Maybe a lot more mellow, but a lot more interesting too.
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