Concerning friendships

For the last few weeks, I’ve been pondering about the thing I miss most in life currently and have come to the realization that there has been a severe dearth of friendships.

There are colleagues, of course. The ones with whom I spend a good part of the day working on things, laughing, sharing some of the details of our lives, yet I wouldn’t call those friendships.

There are those on social media, specifically Twitter and an IRC network with whom I interact on a very regular basis. Those who share their insecurities, jokes, memes, some meaningful snapshots of their lives, wisdom etc, yet they aren’t friends.

What is a friendship then?

A friend, for me, is one with whom I don’t feel inhibited. A person with whom my deepest fears, worries, greatest joys, the falls, the highs can be shared without fear of being judged. A two way street where the person is as open around you as you are to them. Someone I can count upon and someone who will count on me when it matters. Of course, you may say that these qualify as the definition of a partner or a soulmate, but a friendship is different. They are the “3rd place that exists outside of family and work.” The layer that adds balance.