WordPress Daily Prompt: Why Can't We Be Friends

Do you find it easy to make new friends? Tell us how you’ve mastered the art of befriending a new person.

Felines are not the friendliest of animals, in fact not being friendly is one of their trademarks. They do not even face each other when sitting. It might be that a male feline wants to be friendly with a female feline. This can be problematic. Basically the female does not show any signs of “wanting to get to know you”. If the relationship does develop then generally the female swipes the male with a heavy paw on the nose afterwards to show that she still has things under control. The female then moves on to another male cat and the result might be a litter of lovely kittens each one resembling its father, but not resembling each other. The two felines on the right of the photo are sisters from the same litter. Admittedly the black long furred one, Nera, does resemble her mother and the tabby feline probably resembles the father. Who knows? Perhaps both resemble the fathers. On the other hand the white Selkirk Rex feline, known as Fluffy, resembles both his mother and father. It was a planned get together, mummy and daddy both being Selkirk Rex cats, so nothing was left to chance and they had no choice. Perhaps felines are sensible, no discussions, no pretence, they do what they want to do, and no feelings involved.

We humans have to complicate everything. We involve it all with feelings. Befriending someone is not something I would involve with “mastering the art”. Either you find someone sympathetic or you do not, so why does it have to be a strategic event. At my age I do not walk around wanting to make new friends, it just might happen. The true friends are perhaps the ones I still have from my childhood, teenage days, with whom I still have contact, but these friends are mainly in another country, England.

So, I do not make a study of making friends, I just let it happen. I was in England a couple of weeks ago and as my father has now moved, I had to take another bus route to visit him. I was staying at my friend’s house and travelling to and fro with the bus (now that is a friendship lasting already 56 years from our school days). Taking the bus was complicated as it was a different bus route to the one I was used to. I knew it, but at night everything looked different. I eventually arrived where I wanted to go, but not without problems. I am deviating again. I had a memorable bus trip, the bus was crowded as usual, but being a grey-haired golden oldie I could take my place in the seats reserved for the old and frail, at least that is what I did. London is a cosmopolitan town, all nationalities and on one of my journeys I entered a conversation with the lady sitting next to me. That was interesting. She was not a golden oldie and It was obvious that her origins were not so English. She told me she was from Nigeria but had been in London for many years, after at first spending a spell in Manchester. Our conversation developed, both of us learning something from each other. Not that we departed as bosom buddies, but such experiences remain.

My next bus conversation whilst in London was when I sat next to a lady, also not being originally English. Somehow we began to talk. This is not surprising for me, I seem to get involved in conversations most of the time, and some even say I talk a lot. Anyhow, this lady’s origins were in India. This was up my street, having spent my first two years living with a half Indian family in Zürich, Switzerland. I was well acquainted with the food, and many other things. This lady originated in the Punjab, one of the very much Anglo parts of India many years ago. We spoke of many things, political, culinary and I think if I had stayed in London, a genuine friendship might have developed. She asked me my name as I was ready to leave the bus and I asked hers. We will probably never meet again, but another one of life’s positive experiences.

Friendships just happen, they are not planned, some sort of invisible connective wire is in the air and it is a feeling you acquire.

Talking of bus journeys, part of the road for the No. 174 bus in London passes by a sort of bird sanctuary with a small lake, lots of green fields and generally a wonderful place for observing nature. I have known this area for many years. It is now known as the Chase, and at one time there was a public house (pub) there serving drinks for the thirsty wanderer. Today the pub has disappeared and replaced by a very nice house. this might be a hotel. Anyhow after I arrived back in London I read on Facebook, where I am a friend of the Barking Dagenham Post, the local newspaper, that an unsuspecting walker discovered a human leg in the lake. This leg must have been floating around whilst I was passing the area on the bus. The story went further. There was a bloke missing in the area for a couple of months, so the police went to work and found the other body parts. Three people are in arrest and my bus was sailing past this area at least once a day – now that is food for thought. Just by coincidence the bus passes the local cemetery a little way further down the road at a bus stop called Crow Lane – another suitable name for a place with a cemetery.

So if you want to be my friend, that is OK. We are all online people here, will probably never meet in person and what could maybe better. We do not have the complications in the relationship that might disturb our mutual understanding.

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WordPress Daily Prompt: Something So Strong

Tell us the origin story of your best friend. How did you become friends? What is it that keeps your friendship rockin’ after all these years?

Did we cling to each other like ivy, until our friendship was stifled, withered and eventually collapsed? No, of course not, who could resist my friendly charm? Best friends are something for memories, something from a childhood and if they stay as such, then the ivy is still clinging. In our case there are a few ivy branches that still intertwine and remain. It began in high school, although after the first year we were split up into two different classes which stayed thoughout  the following five school years. Our paths split, but contact was still there. Was it because we originated in the same area of London, our mother language being cockney (although due to higher education we were encouraged to drop this “street language”). We understood each other and shared the same interests: the visit to an opera in London from time to time, a weekly Winter Saturday afternoon at the local football club cheering on our team.

At the age of 20 I left England for Switzerland and my friend made her way into her own branch of work with further education and the visit to a university but we still sent our birthday and Christmas cards and when I was visiting in England we still met. This began about sixty years ago and it still exists. She is godmother to my youngest son and has visited me in Switzerland often. If I visit my father in London there is always a bed free for a stay at her house. It does not need anything to keep a friendship “rocking”, just good vibes and we golden oldies have so many joint memories to share. In the meanwhile her father and mother are no longer amongst us, and my mother has passed on. Our two families also became good friends through our friendship.

So enough sentimentalities, I am not the type for sugary sweet stuff and neither is she, if she ever reads this. She will know who I mean.

Otherwise I gave up with friendships some time ago. Friends come and go and you are forgotten. I worked thirty years in a company and left a couple of years ago. Apart from the coincidental meeting of an ex workmate when in town or in the local supermarket, I hear no more. I do not expect it, but I remember the last words “keep in touch”, “I will call you”, “we must get together and talk over the old times”. I am not annoyed, not insulted and I am not disappointed. I now lead my own life and do not feel lonely or left out and I do not need “friends” like that.

After all I have Facebook. Now this is a strange thing, you know over one hundred people (in my case over seven hundred) but you have met perhaps ten of them throughout your Facebook sentence. You may have found a few voices from the past, which I have. School friends from your first school years (and that is a long while ago) or someone that immigrated to Australia as a ten year old. After a long search we found each other again. My cousin in New Zealand with his lovely family, even Facebook has its pros.

There are of course a few cons which I discovered this week. Did you know that you have two sorts of contact lists, those you know and those you do not know but would like to get to know you? This week I discovered the “those you do not know but would like to get to know you”, most interesting. There must be at least 10 gentlemen I have never met that have fallen in love with me through my wonderful, impressive, good looks on my Facebook photo. It is unbelievable. I know I do have a certain charm, but at my age, even with the wrinkles and golden oldie hairstyle they still find I am the answer to their dreams. Unfortunately Facebook marked about twenty contacts as “spam” so many of my fan club members will be disappointed and I will never get to know them as they have been removed (thanks to Mark Zuckerberg). I told Mr. Swiss, but it did not seem to bother him, I think there was a faint laugh. Remind me to have a look on his contacts in Facebook – you never know.

I have decided to remain in Facebook with a special eye on this contact list. It might be that one of the Pulitzer prize/Nobel prize scouts look in and I will at last achieve my well-deserved award. Who knows even Brad Pitt or George Clooney might become my friend. You see there are always reasons to remain in Facebook.

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