friendship

...it's an interesting thing isn't it?

There are so many types of friends:

work friends

school friends

sort-of friends

and real friends.

Work friends are inevitable - I mean really, most people spend more time with co-workers than family.

school friends are convenient - who doesn't want the guarnatee of having someone sit next to them in class?

sort-of friends - these are the people you hang out with out of obligation. or maybe just because you only like them sort-of. or the people you know that are friends-of-a-mutual-friend so you see each other on random occassions.

Real friends. Now these are hard to come by. These are the ones you talk to more than once a week. and because you WANT to - not because you feel like you should. These are the ones that bring you diet coke or a chocolate shake (depending on the day and mood). these are the ones that you call when you are LIVID about something, in SHOCK about something, just heard JUICY gossip, or just need to chat.

Is it just me, or is it very difficult to move up in this chain?

There are people in my life that became my friends because of work or school, and yet - no matter what either person tries, it seems to stay that way.

There are people in my life that are sort-of friends that just can't seem to make it to the Real Friend category.
And yet...it is SO easy for someone to slip down this ladder.

It's so interesting to me how life changes like that.

There are people in my life that I have known for 2 or 3 years, and yet I consider them Real Friends.

And yet, there are people in my life that I have known for 10 or 15 years that are just sort-of friends-through-a-friend.

Now obviously, if I wanted that "sort-of" to become something deeper, it was my responsibility to do so.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about any of this.

I've just had some interesting realizations the last few months about friendship and what it's really about so I thought I'd share some thoughts rather than just letting them swim around in my head...