Man, famously known as the social-animal (despite his many anti-social
elements), loves to be surrounded by a throng of people, whom he more often
than not mistakenly calls his Friends. We study in this thesis the purpose and peculiarities
of these creatures, their importance in one’s personal life, their detrimental
effect on one’s health (smoker befriends smoker paradigm) and the mother of all
questions- who are friends after all?
Oxford Dictionary has a foul, defecation-like definition of
friend-“a person with whom one has a bond of mutual
affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relation” .
First of all, it’s too concise. I mean I know they had to fit in all-so-many
words in one little book, but elaborating a little more wouldn’t have killed
them. Moreover, I think the definition is out-dated. Mutual Affection-honestly,
seems like the writers of the lexicon, were short of words. Plus, the sexual part
isn’t completely true-Friends with Benefits-ring a bell to you? (this part is
strictly not based on my personal life or my affiliation with my friends. It has
purely been platonic.)
(Enough about the
dictionary definition! Back to the theory now! The writer has a bad habit of
digressing.)
Postulate 1: Total
number of friends in one’s life is a fixed constant. (Partial credit to a certain friend for helping me come up with this one!)
The “capacity of friendliness” is like the power of
adsorption of a substance, purely based on the composition of subject-in the
former case, it’s the person’s true, innate nature. So, if you are trying to befriend
more people than you can actually handle, you will realize the true paradoxical
nature of this thesis- you will feel all the more alone. Lonely, to be precise!
Postulate 2: Number
of Facebook friends is inversely proportional to your friends in real life
(People who have more
than a 1000 Facebook friends, please dismiss the writer as a maniac and
navigate back to Facebook)
The reason why you got so many friends on “The Social
Network” in the first place is that you have spent a big chunk of your life liking and tagging people and pleasing them with the saccharine and
sugar-sweet life. What about the bad part? Facebook doesn’t have a Dislike button. You know why? Because
then people would stop going there.
Postulate 3: A Friend
to All is a Friend to None
Everybody’s friend can be your friend, but never the best
one. He/She will be discreet about things until you will learn about them on
twitter/ Facebook or through India TV (If you are that happening and have
famous friends). Litmus test to identify such friends- ask them a question
about taking a stance about someone, if they fail, then they belong to this
category.
Postulate 4: You can
have ONLY ONE Best Friend
This is the truest of the
postulates. You might have a lot of close friends and choosing one of out of
the lot, might seem like a challenge (being
true in the writer’s case), but there’s always one friend who’s true to
you, at least truer than the rest. It may happen that one is the best out of
the lot for a time-span, then there’s someone else. So if you have the time,
keep a list every month. (You are a LOSER if you actually do this!)
(Enough with the thesis! Friends are Friends, with whom you can
kick-back, relax, and sip a beer (sherbet in some cases, where people are from
small towns, like in the case of the writer)! Families are your inheritance-
you may like your aunt’s husband or may completely detest your paternal aunt,
but you have to put up with them. With friends-they are the family you choose. So do as they say in any Telebrands commercial-“Choose wisely, live well”)
Below song dedicated to ONLY those friends with whom I have laughed my heart out!
PS- +1 it on google icon if you
like it, or share on FB J
