The Evolution of Friendships and "Best Friends"

When we are youngsters, we usually have no end of friends. Mainly because most of us got gathered together at school for 2/3 to 3/4 of every year between the ages of around 5 to around 18. In my opinion, the younger that age was, the more friends we had. I say that because at that age we didn't know the difference between a friend and an acquaintance. If we knew the kid, if we talked with them, saw them daily, ate lunch at the same time, and played at recess together then we were friends. Also, usually there are no clique's in those younger years. Those groups usually start forming in 4th or 5th grade. At least they did for me. Nowadays, I expect that happens at an earlier age. Everything else these days is done and learned and happens earlier than when I was a kid. Yes, that makes me sound like the old men we made fun of back then when we were told of walking to and from school uphill both ways, in the snow and ice in short pants and no shoes. It isn't meant to sound that way. Things and people and times change. They have to. Otherwise we stagnate. I get that. These days I don't think the kids get that or have as many friends. Between the protectiveness that is rampant these days (some of which is justified), and all the electronics and the Internet and all, a kid would rather sit in their room and text or facetime or watch YouTube instead of actually being WITH their friends...going out and doing things together, not cybernetically on a 4" phone screen or a tablet or a computer screen. They are missing playing together outside, riding bikes all day, playing games together, climbing trees, exploring places... Getting dirty and enjoying it. Forgetting to eat because you are having so much fun. Seeing the street lights pop on and knowing that is the signal to go home for the night... That is unless you heard your Mom or Dad hollering for you at the top of their lungs from the porch of your house. Most of that is missing these days. Neighborhoods are not like they used to be. Where everyone knew their neighbors and their families and their kids. These days it is odd that we know all of our neighbors or interact with them much, if at all. Generally it usually happens when we are all outside looking at the weather when it's bad or when everyone is out of power and we are all outside looking at the power lines together. Rarely are the kids allowed to go outside and play together unless at least one or two adults go with them. A lot of the adults these days don't want to go outside and watch a kid play. They have "other things to do," so they turn on the TV and plop the kid in front of it with a snack, using the TV as a babysitter. This happens WAY too much, in my opinion. Full disclosure here, I did it too. At least a little bit.

When we are kids are the first times we start looking for friends. We're starting to look for those people that make us feel the best when we are together. Making sure we have similar interests and compatible attitudes and thinking. But above all that, at that early age we just want someone to have fun and play with. Might be family, might not. Usually a combination of both. I once read a poster that said our cousins are our first friends. A very true statement. Our cousins are the people that help us fine tune our friendship making skills. It's easy to do. There's no awkward "getting to know you" period. They are family, so we already know them and are usually comfy around them, so we can work solely on how to be a friend. We'll always be family. Being friends with them is an added bonus. Those friendships will last as long as we want them to. Even if a time comes we say they are no longer a friend (hopefully that time never happens), whatever the reasons, we will always remember the friendship and usually with some fondness. Some of the best memories I have as a youngster revolve around playing with my cousins at family gatherings and when we went to their houses for visits and such. Staying all night... Playing in our basement in the old toy barrel that we used to empty then get into and roll each other around... Attempting to play pool on a pool table that was not much shorter than we were... Sitting on the sidewalk bridge trying to get the semi trucks to toot their horns on the way by Grandma's house... Typing on Grandpa's typewriter while listening to sound effects and music playing on his reel-to-reel tape deck... Taking rides on our older cousin's cars and all the things that got us into... Swimming at Baring Country Club Lake in the summer... Getting frozen Marathon candy bars and ice cold Mountain Dew at the clubhouse before going in to play pinball... Going with Dad to Royals games and to Chiefs games with my uncle and cousin... The memories are great and fresh in my mind still. I cherish them.

Later, we start picking our own friends from outside of the bonds of family. There is a saying that goes something like this, "Family is a gift given to us by blood... Friends are the family we get to choose." I fully subscribe to that statement. In the beginning, there are usually many friends. As we get older those friendships evolve. Some stay close, some evolve into just acquaintances, and sadly some just fall away. Compare it to a kid and coins for a piggy bank. Most younger kids would much rather have 100 pennies than four quarters or two half-dollars. Why? Because at that age, more is better. At least they think so most times. The more they have the more fun it is. It's that way with friends too. The more friends we have, the more fun there is to be had, and most kids are smart enough to reason that out. As we get older and start to mature, little details come out that move people around in our brain. Some may do some small thing or activity that we do or we like, so we start spending more time with them. Maybe some others are a little annoying or do things we aren't so interested in, so we hang around with them a little less. As that progresses, we get our first "best friends." As we get older, the expectations and needs we have from a best friend change and evolve. As that happens, who is included in those groups change. The numbers start to shrink. Not that we have any less friends, but our "bests" get lower in numbers. That is not a bad thing. Going back to the coins analogy from before, having 100 pennies is the same as having 10 dimes or 4 quarters. The numbers dwindle, but those that are left are worth more individually and still add up to the same amount. When we are young, having more is more fun because we like counting them and putting them in the piggy bank. As we get older we start to realize that having fewer of something worth more feels better than having a lot of something worth less. They add up to the same total, but fewer makes them mean more to us. Usually anyway. On the flip side of that, it's not like we run out of friendship to give. We just tend to give it out as if it is a rare commodity. It's hard for me to explain, but I hope you can see what I am getting at. So, all through our school years there are groups and cliques and all that come and go and grow and shrink. We have our own groups that are in our mind, and then there are the more "usual" groups. By those I mean like in high school there are always the jocks, and the cheerleaders, and the smart kids, and the troublemakers, and the lone wolves... Groups like that.

When I started high school I wasn't in any group. You might ask, "How can that be?" Well... I was starting over. My father got a new job and moved us at the end of my freshman year in high school. I spent one quarter in a junior high in our new town, then went to the high school the following Fall. I knew no one and had few friends because at that age, one quarter at the end of the school year just before high school is a very short time to start growing those types of friendships. Many groups have already formed and it is very hard to get into one in that short a time. Especially for a kid like me who was rather shy and pretty low on self-confidence. Luckily, the first day we moved into the new house, a guy who lived down the street saw me playing basketball and shooting around in the driveway. He and his younger brother were doing the same out front of their house. Like me, he was kinda low on self-confidence too, so he sent his brother up to ask if I wanted to come down and shoot around with them. I did. He was a year ahead of me in school, but we had a lot in common. Love of basketball and football (but not enough to make the school teams), love of astronomy, similar taste in music, we were even built similarly and were close to the same height. We became friends quickly because we were similar in many ways. In fact, as the summer wore on, some started thinking we were brothers. We started telling some people we were twins, just born six months apart. Incredibly, some people actually believed that! We always chuckled at that whole idea, but it was fun. We spent the entire summer becoming friends... My first best friend of high school. When school started that Fall, I started noticing a guy that I had had a science class with in the junior high for that last quarter. We started talking and found that we too had quite a bit in common. He and I started hanging around more together and I introduced him to my other friend too. They knew who the other was, but didn't really know each other. A little bit later, one of his best friends was introduced to the rest of us, and suddenly we were our own little group. We now call our group "The Originals." Back then we had no group name. We were our own little satellite group. We knew people in all the other groups and we were on good terms with pretty much all of them, but we kind of kept to ourselves. We're very close and I don't see that ever changing. I count myself very lucky. I had three best friends in my high school years. Most would be happy to have just one. To this day, almost 40 years later, we are all still close. We've added a couple of other guys since the high school days, but the feelings are the same. We can go long periods and not talk much, if at all, but the next time we do talk we fall right into it as if we just saw each other yesterday. We're past the macho worries that were around in high school too. Back in those days it was a handshake or a high five and that was it. We still do that, but we aren't afraid to give each other a hug now. These men, for all intents and purposes, are my brothers. Men that I chose to be part of my family. I am not afraid to say that I love every one of them. People who might give me crap or make fun of that statement don't know how it feels to have someone like that. I feel sorry for them. They are missing out. Being able to say you love to someone is one of the best feelings you can have. Back in high school (and for some time after), I did worry about what others might think of me for saying I love you to another guy. I don't any more. These men are my brothers. It is just that simple. I'll never worry again about what others think of me for saying it. Of course it is not always smooth sailing. There are still peaks and valleys. Every relationship has those. We talk, argue, get mad, complain, whatever just like any brothers would do. But at the end of the day, they are still there. They have faced life and death with me, and me with them. I can't imagine how my life would be without them.

Hopefully this makes sense to some or most of you. It is just my own personal take on how things evolve in friendships and all from when I was a kid to now.  Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to grab a frozen candy bar and an ice cold Mountain Dew on the way out.  :)