(no subject)
Old is gold. I have reached a stage where I've stopped wanting to meet that many new people, and find it more rewarding to concentrate on the people I already know. I've started to savour rituals above novelty, like meeting up at the same old place for dinner with the same old friends. Maybe this is a perspective that comes with age. It used to be much more fun to meet new people and make new friends, and I would never think of my best friends as the oldest ones - best friends were just whomever I could rant to about my problems at the time, or whomever I had the best time with. Of course some of these people have, over time, turned into the best friends I have. But that status now is bestowed upon them by the sheer fact that we have grown together over time, and we now know each other in a non-linear capacity. Things we do or say in the present all happen in a context that, with an old friend, goes without saying. Our shared rituals, mannerisms and private languages were built over time, and as a result of all we have been through together. What new friend can beat that, really? After a certain amount of time, you don't want to pour out your life story to everyone who comes your way, if that could even remotely replace someone actually having been there with you through all those times. It becomes tiresome to hear life stories as well, and everyone has one to tell. Good times with new acquaintances are just that, good times, and I often don't care if it happens again with the same people. Perhaps it is largely arbitrary - who you get to meet early enough in your life, and who you don't - but most opportunities in life are the same, and friendship is no exception. You get what you get, and you get who you get. A good and close friendship is one of the strongest pieces of evidence of a life well-lived - evidence that you have not squandered the opportunity to let something change your life for the better, or the opportunity to influence someone else's life too. Evidence of a life and time experienced and built together with others.