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3 Kinds of Friends

My most recent theory: there are basically three bases (basises? basees?) for friendships:

1. shared history.
2. shared worldview.
3. shared life-stage/interests.

Sometimes you have all three in common with a person, sometimes you have a combination, and sometimes you just have one.

Also, you might have all three in common with someone, and two years later, you've only got the shared history left.  But in a few more years, maybe you'll be back to sharing other things too.

Friendships look different depending on which platform(s) you're building off of, and that's ok. So long as you don't expect your new-concert-best-friend to understand the total complexities of why you feel a little bit panicky in the post-concert exodus, or think that your friend-forever-and-new-mom will be up for a last minute weekend road-trip. Different relationships, different strengths.

What do you think? Is this accurate or way off base? How do you recognize & respond to these sometimes subtle shifts in your friendships?

Comments

  1. I like it. But I would probably separate shared interests from shared lifestage. Because I love doing a lot of things that my students do like concerts and movies, but we're at very different lifestages. I'm a full-time employee, they are students.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is true, they aren't necessarily the same...

    So four bases.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes! And I would agree with Deepak.
    It's interesting how friendships evolve with age.
    The other day Noah pointed out a little boy in the restaurant and said, "See that boy? Yeah, in the blue shirt. He's my friend." He had no idea what his name was.

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