I have been taking care of my neighbor’s cats for the past week and a half. I’m not a cat person but I am open on a case by case basis. Their small female hid mostly, unsure of the entire ordeal, coming out only to eat and receive a few cheek rubs out of desperation. But her large male brother, every day I went over, would plop his sizable mass right onto my lap and proceed to purr like a lawnmower and shed on me like he was making up for lost time. But due to this behavior I very quickly developed a bond with him. I would pet and scratch him (and then lift my fingers up every few strokes to blow the hair away) while trying to read one of the magazines on the coffee table, for an hour or two a day.

Friendship is a phenomenon to me. It can be so random. You just click with someone sometimes. But for some reason, as adults, we no longer come right out and say I like you. Do you want to be my friend? the way we used to when we were kids.

No, as adults we become covert. We feel the chemistry, or a connection or we are simply fascinated or intrigued by someone. We want to be this person’s friend. Meaning we want to see them on a regular or semi-regular basis, sometimes in group activities and sometimes one-on-one.

Launch Mission Make-a-Friend:

• Have at least one, but usually more than one, memorable conversation together in a group setting.
• Make casual invitation to have coffee sometime. Adding a drink and a planned one-on-one meeting bumps you up to the next level, while adding the exchange of phone numbers.
• After this, there is a tentative feel-out period to see if the resulting interest is mutual, if more one-on-one time is desired, and if so, how much and how often.
• If you both desire to be around one another on a regular or semi-regular basis, then there has been made a friendship.
• After this there is maintenance.

I have spent some time analyzing what it is that causes me to be effortlessly drawn to some and then completely disinterested in others. Mainly it is personality, of course. For instance, as an intuitive person I desire the depth of fellow intuitives and am bored by the more surface-oriented small-talkers. As a talker I can struggle with those who talk too much and don’t let me in enough. As a free bird I don’t bond well with people who are too serious or uptight. These are obvious.

The one that I have been noticing more lately though is love language. You know, there are five different ways of showing and receiving love according to Gary Chapman, author of The Five Love Languages:

• Words of Affirmation
• Physical Touch
• Gifts
• Acts of Service
• Quality Time

The two at the top for me are words of affirmation and quality time. If you want to hang out with me and tell me how awesome I am I will love you and I will hang out with you and tell you how awesome I think you are. The two at the bottom for me are Gifts and acts of service. I don’t need you to give me anything or do anything for me (except spend time with me and tell me I’m awesome) and I am not drawn to give you gifts or do things for you as a way of showing love. These things are still in my friendships, but they are not paramount to me. Physical touch is stuck in the middle because I can take it or leave it, I’m happy with greeting and parting hugs.

So I have noticed that the friends I have had some trouble bonding with are those who have love languages that are at the bottom of my list. So this friend whose cats I have been taking care of, I have come to realize that one of his top love languages may be acts of service. Have you ever had one of these friends? Where your friendship seems to revolve around their asking you for favors in large quantity? You may feel used or resentful or even like there is no friendship at all. But when I realized that this may be the way my friend feels loved, that maybe people doing favors for him shows him that they are truly his friends, my viewpoint softened. I don’t say yes every time, but I do make an effort.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on friendship today.

Is there a friendship in your life like this? Where maybe a difference in the idea of friendship is causing strain?

Or is there someone to whom you simply want to say, “I like you. Will you be my friend?”

Or do you simply need to get a cat?

 

 

 

 

Liked this post? Follow this blog to get more.