I've always been a slightly eccentric person. As a consequence, the sort of friends I attract occasionally tend to be unusual as well, though never the same kind of unusual as me. Indeed, once in a great while, I befriend a person who's personality is so deviant from the norm, they could well be considered to be suffering from mild mental illness. But, that's ok; such people are usually interesting to talk to. However, those kind of friendships are not what I want to talk about extensively today.
Rather, that got me thinking about the nature of friendship in general. It seems to me, they are things forged primarily out of mutual convenience. In every single case, the would-be-friends already happen to spend a decent amount of time near each other by pure coincidence, whether that be through work, school, church, karate class, an Internet forum you visit too often, or whatever. In every case, they also share at least one favored activity or school of thought. Friendships can grow intricately strong, but, they remain built on that same foundation: convenience. Remove a convenience, and the friendship either alters its structure to stand on the remaining conveniences, or falls dormant entirely. A dormant friendship is almost never a dead friendship, but, it is a damaged one. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In the absence of sufficient active friendships, new friendships are forged. The cycle continues until you have this huge network of people you used to know and are still on good terms with. That kind of thing can come in quite handy once in a while; not just for the odd favor or two, but also because old ties can be reactivated very easily in the event that they ever become convenient again.
So, to all of my old friends from Oregon: it's not over. It's never over. I still think about you all from time to time, checking in on those that keep an online blog and merely wondering about those who don't. I genuinely wish you all well and it breaks my heart when I hear about the serious problems some of you are going through. I don't care how much you change while we're apart; an old friend is an old friend and nothing can change that. Who knows, our paths may cross again sooner than we think. I look forward to that time.
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