What does it take for you to consider someone a friend?
 

I won’t deep the opening message too much this time (Family Guy and sleep are calling) but yeah, the title’s pretty self-explanatory. Can you consider someone you just happen to vibe with from the off a friend after all of five minutes or are you more cautiously guarded by principles and/or appropriate time-frames?

As long as I can believe someone is really genuine.
Then I'd welcome them as friends.

If anyone however questions my integrity or deceives in any way then I'd drop them rapidly.

I don't know what to tick. I would tick a box that says, I'm wary about people who say they are friends because I've been fooled before.

My core friends have been friends since I was a kid. Since adulthood and more since having my son, ive made lots of groups of acquantancies...school mums, football mums, athletics etc.....I socialise with them but its on a fairly superficial level. We talk about kids, have a laugh but I revert to my older "real" friends to talk about actual issues, problems etc

There are levels of friendship and so called friends

This thread reminds me of the whole 'friendship' thing in general. There's more & more people who are more colleagues & acquaintance ,rather than life long friends.

Obviously people make friends as they go by .....but how many of these people are genuine friends,who will be there for you ?. As we get older ....we see things for what they really are :shrug: .

Genuine and Loyal...real good friends are few and far between and you can usually count them on one hand.

That’s been amputated

I have quite a few aquaintances that Im friends with,but just one best friend that I trust wholeheartedly.

This...

I have one friend i'd trust with my life, another im very good friends with, and the rest are just acquaintances.

Epitaph On A Friend
#
An honest man here lies at rest,
The friend of man, the friend of truth,
The friend of age, the guide of youth;
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,
Few heads with knowledge so inform’d;
If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.

Rabbie Burns

Chat GPT is my new best friend

I hear you when it comes to being let down and disappointed too many times to not have boundaries when it comes to the very concept of friendship. Anyone who claims to be your friend of anything other than a mutually-amiable (at best) acquaintance after having known you for all of 2 weeks and gets surprised at the most basic facts about you which are obvious to those who actually know you in any capacity worth speaking about is blatantly taking the piss. We can be pub buddies but that doesn’t mean you really know anything about me.

Trust is key. People who claim to be your friends but turn around to gossip you to death the second they think you’re not listening are some of the worst people going (not just regular benign ‘goss.’ but broadcasting someone’s private business just to talk). They genuinely act confused when you cut them off or grey-rock them but the fact of the matter is they’ve proven straight-up that you can’t trust them, whether they intended for you to know or not.

I think in your case (as well as mine) it’s all about trust and loyalty, Liv.

My "true proper" friends I've known all for 20+ years (well, there's also my wife who I've known for 17 years). One I've known basically since birth. Those are what I'd call the timeless friendships - I can see them twice in a week, or once in over a year (hello Covid) and it be like I saw them yesterday. I genuinely believe it will be the same if we meet up aged 70.

Other friends, a little time and shared interests plus, yes, being able to vaguely trust them is important. Those can be shorter friendships though, people move on etc. though tbh I don't have any old friends who I wouldn't be glad to see if I ran into them, or who (I imagine/hope) don't feel the same. Can't say I've ever properly fallen out with a friend, just lost touch.

And beyond that I like to think I'm generally friendLY and I have great and in-depth conversations with colleagues etc. and I enjoy their company, but there are few that I would consider "proper" friends.

As Maya Angelou says people are either in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime but behind that there are people I’ve had on my socials since first year of uni. and I’m glad I do because we had good times together. I might not know them well enough to trust them with my life (there’s only a handful of people beyond immediate family I’d trust with that anyway and in any case I wouldn’t even want to) but I just know they’re good people. On the contrary if I’ve been nothing but kind to you (whether you were in my life from the off or for a season) and you threw mud on my kindness and disrespected me badly I’m probably never going to ever forgive you or want to see you ever-again. People who are ‘socially-reserved’ (moi being one) are naturally very self-sufficient and comfortable in their own space so it’s not that hard to cut people off who don’t deserve you and like Livia personally alluded to I’ve been hurt a lot so it just pay to be wary going Into any new relationship now. I’ll remember a truly loyal/trustworthy person ’til the end and hold a special place for them in my heart of hearts but I’ll also take memories of toxic people to the grave and for all the wrong reasons.

Mhm-hm. Who is that mad person who’ll say you’re BFFs for life just because they need someone to cling onto?