From Strangers to Friends to Best Friends to Strangers Again
A Personal Opinion Piece on Fragile Friendships
There are some friendships that are so intense that the transition from strangers to close friends happen in less than a couple of weeks. Most of the time, this type of friendship starts off quickly and then after a short period of time, it is gone. Like the saying, easy come, easy go, intense friendships usually don’t survive the passage of time.
The reason why these friendships start off so intensely is probably because of the personalities of the people involved. Some people just love the feeling of having something new and exciting in their lives. The novelty of talking and hanging out with someone new feels like a breath of fresh air and it can be really addictive.
But here’s the thing, just as I was talking to Nour Boustani the other day (in response to his article which I would link at the bottom of this post), when you first meet someone new, you’re usually on your best behaviour. Both of you are showing off all your positive and attractive qualities, and each starts to think that this other person is absolutely amazing. You might even start to share experiences and secrets that you haven’t told anyone else just because you think that they are so wonderful. This false sense of intimacy can make you feel important and creates the illusion that this new friend is someone you cannot live without.
You could also feel that you have a lot in common as you find out more about the other person. If you talk all day and night, you are bound to find some similarities in your thoughts and interests. They like shopping for clothes? So do you! You have a dog too? This means that you are going to be best friends for life.
But just as quickly as you become close friends, you can also fall out of each other’s lives just as fast. If the friendship is too intense, you run the risk of saying the wrong thing or offending the other person. People tend to be more emotionally sensitive when they are close to one another. And if one person is obsessive or possessive, it can be suffocating for the other person. They might feel jealous if their friend spends time with other people and would try to manipulate or guilt-trip them into spending more time with them instead. This would of course be the downfall of any friendship as we cannot be fully dependent on just one friend for all our emotional needs.
Eventually, the novelty of the friendship wears off, and you start to see this person for who they really are. They might just be like one of your old pals whom you’d already drifted apart from. They might also turn out to be boring, and you start to wonder why you ever thought they were so great in the first place. You start talking less and less, making excuses not to see each other, and before you know it, you’re back to being strangers again. Some people might even block their former friend’s phone number or unfriend them on social media.
In the end, the cycle of strangers to friends to strangers is complete. It sucks but sometimes, that is just the way things are. So, try to take it slow when you have a new friend. If it is too intense right from the beginning, it might fizzle out and when it does, don’t be too surprised about it.
This is Nour Boustani’s article that I quoted earlier.
And here is a second article from Nour which is somewhat relatable to mine as well so I’ll leave it here for you guys to read, too.
This post seems like a shoutout to Nour Boustani but in actual fact, I’m name-dropping him. Thank you, Nour for your friendship and always being such an inspiration!
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