The Fickleness of Friendship

The Fickleness of Friendship

12/25/2013 05:30:00 am
By Taylor Davenport
Expert Author Taylor Davenport
Has the world in which we live become so introverted that only that which concerns us as individuals is of any importance to us and our daily lives? Would we really sacrifice the happiness of someone we supposedly held dear only to further our own goals?
Too often in modern times has it become so clear that the foundations of most friendships are built from what personal benefit can be gained by at least one party to the friendship. Time is not afforded to those who, whilst interesting individuals, would bring no obvious desired gain to our lives and therefore are not given the opportunity of showing their personalities to any real extent. So what is a friend exactly? The term friend is defined as:
"A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations."
However, although above is the formal definition it would not be difficult to imagine this definition could be altered to:
"A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection when it is convenient, typically inclusive of sexual, monetary, political, career enhancing or family relations."
We may not like it, nor may we choose to accept it but if you delve beneath the surface of the majority of friendships we will find that there is mutual benefit in conjunction with mutual affection. This poses the question, is it the benefit that drives the affection or vice versa?
It would seem that it is the benefit that drives the affection as we seem to give the most attention to those who we feel would add required advantages to our lives to make the cut of obtaining affection. If this is the case then does it not follow that if the benefit ends then so does the affection?
Perhaps you can sit back with a cup of coffee and think about your circle of friends and how they add value to your life and perhaps if they didn't would you slowly extricate them from your life?
It is unlikely that there would be a ceremonious end to the friendship, although possible. In most cases, you would just stop calling and you would return their calls less frequently than before until the friendship just fizzled out.
The sad fact of the matter is that the person who is being cut out is usually the same as they have always been and it is just our fickle nature that drives us to always been on the look out for something new or better or both.
For more on matters of friendship:

About

This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.

Next
« Prev Post
Previous
Next Post »
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)