Friendships...

Recently I've had conversations with a few people about the idea of friendship and what it means to me.
Talking to people, they paint a very different picture of friendship. That in reality, friends tend to come and go, and I must begrudgingly agree. If I talk about friendship with understanding, love, affection, intimacy… am I really talking about what other people consider a partner? This is what many of the people I've talked to have reported back to me – and I think they are mostly right. I experience relationships as they come, and do not categorize much – but my dream relationships would translate most closely to the idea of romantic relationships in the eyes of – well – normal people!

But considering that a bit further, I wonder in many respects if I lots of the friends I have I really treat to be "partners" of sorts.  Not everyone would fall into this category, but many would. There are also some female friends I have who I don't connect with, and that makes me consider them in a different way. But the rest – those who I do feel a connection with…  I guess the relationship I'm describing is a fusion of friendship and romantic connection.

So maybe whenever I meet people I really like, I'm falling in love in a mini little way each time. For me, these concepts are linked, but they are different. I can love a friend, but I love a romantic partner in a different way. The difference is qualitative, not quantitative, i.e. it can be the same in intensity, but a different type of love.   Indeed, some of my closest friendships recently have involved some kind of extreme closeness, not physical, but the inclination is there. Sometimes when a new friend appears on the scene or you have introduced, there is a little bit of self doubt  and of envy that they can see each other more than you do... we are human it's natural, sometimes doesn't make it any easier.

And maybe each time a friend drifts away, or puts a block on how close we're going to get together, or doesn't consider me as special as others…. I'm getting my heart broken a little bit each time. That actually explains a lot to me. I thought I was weird feeling so bad, and indeed so good, over friendships. But if each time I'm valued to someone, I feel love; and each time I'm distanced from someone, I feel a sense of being heart broken – that makes sense to me. The love that I can feel for a friend is similar to the love I can feel for my brother, ( when we got on). The love that I feel for someone that I am romantically engaged with is very different. I could love a male friend just as much as a female one.
That is my slant on things anyway, but I think each to their own, there is no right or wrong way to feel about this. There are norms and conventions, but then very many people do not conform to them. I'm not sure I want to modify the way I feel towards others though. The way I relate to people now is, well just natural to me. It doesn't feel forced or developed. Friendship will always remain the key word to me though, because of it's connotations.