Friends

Making friends is more difficult than anyone is willing to admit. I was inspired to say something on friendship after reading a difficult story on my friend's blog.

My son is still too young to be concerned with the harsh reality of school but I think about the future! In a few years it will be important to him. I hope he is both lucky and naturally skilled in the art of friendship. I was not.

I firmly believe it takes both skill and luck to make good friendships. You can have the best of intentions but choosing friends is often random and entirely dependent upon who you first bump into... be it a next door neighbor, the kid sitting next to you in class, or the guy that stands next to you in gym because your last names start with the same letter. Additionally, you can bump into the perfect best-friend potential without even knowing, unless you take the time and energy to cultivate that chance meeting into something more.

I never really did a great job of making friends for the vast majority of my childhood. All through elementary my two best friends were a pair of brothers that lived down the street from me. They were 2 and 3 years older and we didn't cross paths much in school. My school friends were really more like school acquaintances and although I tried to bond with these kids nothing ever really stuck.

When I moved to another town at the tender age 13 I was very sad to be leaving my two best friends. Looking back I am certain that my lack of strong friendships from school made it all the more scary. However, I had high hopes that my luck would change.

I am happy to say that I did make some great friends but it didn't happen overnight. I got lucky with one of those friendships, having made it early in my move. I am forever grateful to that person for looking past the geeky kid in nike ankle-socks to see "me" underneath. But aside from this chance meeting, my two best guy-friends from high-school didn't come along for another two years. During those two years I had a few failures along the way. Three to be exact.

When I turned 15 it just happened. I began to question my ability to make friends but I happened to be in the right place at the right time and I made two great friendships the beginning of my sophomore year. Looking back I am glad that I "stayed the course" and continued to be myself. It took five damn years but my friendship circle was something I was very proud of.

But ever since then I have always been very suspect of meeting new people. I am still very slow to trust others. I also questioned my ability to "read" other people. I wondered if I was a good judge of character. But I took what I had learned and built on that skill. I made friends with a great bunch of guys in college. To this day, I am amazed by the strength and number of these friendships. But again, luck played no small part in how these guys came together.

Outside of office friendships - I was also lucky enough to land what I would describe as my last two "pre-parenting" friends. One through a mutual friend and one from graduate school. I cannot imagine not having them as friends today.

But as a thirty-something father and husband I look to the future with more concern for my son's prospects of friendship than my own. I am hopeful that one can teach their children the skills of friendship but I also believe that nothing beats being in the right place, at the right time.

Ultimately, I believe you must teach your children to be kind, be fun, and be true to what they know is right. There will be hardships along the way, only because children can be cruel to one another. But eventually your son or daughter will find that niche and they can be proud of the fact that they did not compromise their principles in an effort to make a fair-weather-friend.