Forever running

There are so many ways to communicate now that are not face to face. So many ways not to face your fears. It has made us weaker people.

Friendship, and your worth to others

My ex girlfriend's parents were like a second set of parents to me. In seven years we went through a lot together, and I felt I belonged to their 'inner circle', meaning I was entrusted with family matters and problems hardly anyone knew about. Thus I really felt part of the family. When me and my ex broke up, this wasn't because I had done anything horrible or whatever - it just didn't work out between us anymore. Her parents didn't hate me or anything, and didn't have any reason to. But in the blink of an eye, I no longer was a part of their family, and they never contacted me again. I felt (and still feel, after 15 months) like they only used to be in contact with me because I just happened to be the guy their daughter brought home, not because they also liked me as a person and valued me as someone they could trust. This tells me that - if such an intimate and long relationship can be ended so quickly - your value to others is completely relative to circumstances, and is fleeting. People will discard you as a friend as soon as they feel like it, and it will be like you never had their trust. Therefore I regard all but the longest and steadiest friendships to be fleeting, and I just enjoy them while they last, without expecting too much of those people, knowing people like I do. My being discarded by my 'second parents' only confirmed what I already knew: people are a bunch of individualistic, selfish creatures whose relationships with others are almost without exception institutes of convenience.

I have thought a lot about relationships and friendships over the past year. As I am not the first to do this, and there are numerous quotes to be found from people wiser than me, I would like to comment on the concept of friendship with the help of some of these wise men:


All but the truest of friends will betray you or simply discontinue their relationship with you at some time or other. It is best to anticipate the end of current friendships by making new acquaintances as much as you can, so that new friendships can emerge from them to replace the old:

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life,
he will soon find himself left alone."

- Samuel Johnson

Do not trust your 'friends' too much in the first years of your friendship, as your trust will often be betrayed. When you are as certain as can be about the true bond of friendship with another, however, be there for them always, and nourish the relationship like you would nourish your child:

"Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in,
continue firm and constant."

- Socrates

Betrayal will occur. The only question is: will you be stabbed in the back or in the front? The person of value and integrity will not be a coward and confess to you why it is he betrayed you:

"A true friend stabs you in the front."

- Oscar Wilde

True and genuine friendship is one of the most precious things you will ever find in life, and is to be cherished like none other:

"Friendship without self interest is one of the
rare and beautiful things in life."

- James Francis Byrnes

Even though you know you will most likely be betrayed eventually, you need even the friendships you know won't last:

"Without trust, betrayal cannot be. But without trust,
I will have no one but me."

- Hak

Cowardice and betrayal

Why are there so many cowards in the world? In my experience, it happens too often that someone is too cowardly to just speak his mind. They prefer running, and shunning you, to saying why they are mad at you. And I think it is very sad.

Perhaps it is in part due to the fact that we are living in an Information Age. It is increasingly easy to just block someone online if you live somewhere else, to just cut him off. Suppose you lived in some tiny village in 1000 AD and you were angry with a friend from that village (the villagers being just about the only people you ever saw), you had better just talk to him about it and work it out. But these days, people find it easier to just cut off and block all communications, so they won't have to explain their feelings. I think it would be a sad thing indeed for the human race if these people don't feel any guilt about this cowardly behaviour. But of course, you can't ask them, as they'll just ignore you. I hope they do, though, as it is what they deserve.

I continue to be surprised at the kind of people who pull these stunts, and I still don't see it coming, despite it having happened a number of times. People I trusted, people I called (very) good friends, have cut off all communications with me out of the blue without ever giving me a reason. Asking for one, even demanding one, doesn't help, and I have even once received a reply I would just have to accept not getting a reason for the 'betrayal' (which is what it feels like). This person actually replied to say he refused to tell me! To me this is as cowardly as being a soldier who is too scared to fight and instead lays down in a trench somewhere crying, sucking his thumb and calling for his momma.

I recently had a friend who couldn't stand such practices either, who was as stunned as I was that this happened, that people could display such cowardly behaviour, to show this little loyalty to someone they used to call a good friend and shared many good times with. We talked about this a lot, and I thought she was the last person on earth who would ever do such a thing. But as it happens, she did, and I am flabbergasted by it. If such an outspoken opponent of such things does this, is somehow too afraid to tell me what the hell is up and leaves me wondering what on earth it was that I have done to her without realising it, then just about anyone can do this.

So I have been betrayed by good friends and by someone professing to hate people who do what she did herself. They either started ignoring me outright and pretended I no longer existed, refused to give me a reason for it or did give me a reason (happened only once - does this make this person slightly less pathetic, I wonder?) but never gave me a chance to reply or to defend myself (reminds me of stabbing someone in the back), instead saying that she would block me on all websites and that it would be the last I ever heard of her. And it leaves me wondering if I am somehow a person who is not to be trusted, who does the most horrible of things, who should be hated for all the terrible things he does to people, who deserved all this. But you know, that is simply not true. The people who are too cowardly to speak their minds over some (minor) grievance are to blame, and I rank them among the most pathetic of human beings.

But what to do, then? Should I just not make friends, never trust people, expecting to be betrayed? Of course not. I will have to learn to shrug off these betrayals, as they will continue to occur, I am sure. But it is a difficult thing to do, and at the moment I have great difficulty imagining not caring when this happens. Maybe expecting it will happen anyway will make it hurt less when it does. Or perhaps it is supposed to hurt every time to remind you never to become naïve and trust people too easily.

And these cowards? I hope they will burn in hell.