Alittle Bit Of Effort

26.7.09

Who do you consider to be your closest friends today? Do you remember meeting them? Can you remember what it was like to get to know them? Was it smooth sailing straight from the start? Were the early meetings devoid of awkward silences? What made you want to see them again? These are the questions I’ve been asking myself lately.

I remember one day in year 5 or 6 when I went to hang out at a person’s house for the first or second time. I’d been there since about 10 a.m. and it was in the mid-afternoon when we were running out of things to do. All the Nintendo games had been exhausted and there was nothing left to talk about so we turned the television on. There was nothing of note showing on any of the Channels except for ING Cup Cricket. We watched it until my mum came to pick me up. It wasn’t particularly exhilarating for my friend and it was perhaps a little awkward. I’m a big cricket fan but he was not.

With a semester of Uni behind me I think I’ve had my fair share of introductory conversations in recent times. It seems as if nobody remembers how they made friends during Primary School, how they met and made their best friends.

We are much more ruthless these days on who we want to spend our time with. Do we not have enough time to make an effort on new people anymore? Is our existing circle of friends insulating us from feeling the need for expansion? Whatever it is, it is clear that we favour going with instinct and “gut feeling” than working on our relationships. When there’s an awkward silence we panic that we didn’t “hit it off” right away and we shy away from asking them if they’ve had lunch yet. The opposite happens when we meet someone with similar interests or who we find interesting from the start. These people we think about and pursue as if we know we’ll be great friends straight off the bat. We put all the pressure on first impressions and when a deal-breaker is sighted, we jump ship.

I myself have succumbed to making shortcuts like this. Many a time have I withdrawn from people I don’t immediately find interesting, often have I sought the security of older acquaintances. I have a list of my own, a list of people who I’d like to get to know better, people who I’d make the effort for, have made the effort for. Often, this prioritising can work but sometimes it’s not so successful. Sometimes I make a bit of effort and it turns out they’re totally different from what I expected. It may look good on paper but we’re not actually as compatible as I might have thought.

I’m making the assumption that everyone prioritises like this because, well, I really think we all do (at least to a certain extent). Has it been successful for you? Do you even care if it works or not? If not then is that because you think you’ve already got enough firm friends? All things said, I know that it's impossible to make an effort and see every relationship to its potential. Comparing today with Primary School just makes me think about this, I guess. Because really, what if we lasped to the olden days and didn't write off so many potential friends so quickly? Today, Gareth is still one of my good friends despite that slow half an hour in front of the cricket nine years ago. And no, he still doesn’t share my interest for cricket.

Wise investments of effort + time and a bit of luck = the ability to laze around for a few days in a big house in the Blue Mountains just enjoying everyone else's company. We've done it seven years in a row.