A long time ago I had a conversation with someone about what a friend really was. Opinionatedly I told him that a friend was someone you could be completely yourself around at all times. My companion disagreed and he told me that my definition was too extreme.... I wondered why I had no friends.
After a little more life experience and time (especially serving a mission) I have revised my statement. I don't think I am ever "completely me" with one person. I adapt my interests and ideas, the things I talk about and how I say them depending on who I'm communicating with. No matter who it is. Is that wrong? Am I two-faced, or ten-faced? It is not that I am trying to be dishonest or am necessarily hiding things, but I just adapt. I guess I really am a chameleon.
The other interesting note I have to say about friends is finding them. I have made friends (no I still haven't defined what that means) because of convenience (age/location). I have made them because I was living with them 24/7 and it was better to be friends then enemies. I have made them when someone else initiated contact and friendship. I have come to call many people friends, a lot of whom I have nothing in common with. How does that work? It is not about "clicking."
While serving my year and a half mission I served with seven different people. Sometimes we would ask each other "would we have been friends in high school?" Sometimes the answer was yes -we would have searched each other out because of similarities in interests or opinions- but sometimes it would have been no. Either way, we are friends now. And that is important.
Friendship is about love and service and time. Friendship is not about me, about being "myself" completely. It is about them, do I love them, serve them, listen to them, laugh with them. That is friendship.
I think it's fascinating to ask myself if I would have been friends with someone in high school. I'm pretty sure if my husband and I were in the same year of high school we wouldn't have been friends but now we're best friends. It's a fascinating thought about how each one of us grows and learns what friendship is - and like you said isn't just internal and selfish but external and self less.
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