Circles of friends

So I seem to be continuously mentioning a dear young friend of mine that has come to be lovingly known as MacT© by her gaggle of constantly amazed friends. She has a tendency to ask questions or make statements that prove to be both entertaining and informative. She is constantly making us older folks scratch our collective chins and go, “Huh.” She definitely keeps us on our toes and never ceases to amaze us. She and a few other younger people (One of which I am proud to call my Niece. Waves at Susan!) are what gives me hope that the future of mankind might just be bright after all.

The only “problems” I find with MacT© is her inability to see just how amazing she is and how much her brilliance and love of life effect everyone around her. Modesty is all well and good (Me personally I never touch the stuff, but hey...) but you should also recognize your talents and skills and embrace them. MacT© is a highly intelligent student and a truly gifted poet. Her insights have often made me go “Wow” and feel a little bit silly. Of course, her main “problem” is her inability to truly Grok (Hah, Paul Hodges didn't know what RAH was! Neener neener neener!) what real friendship means. Especially in the case of me and my friends.

Friend and Friendship are two words that I think have been horribly abused these days especially with the advent of Social Sites like Facebook. People seem to associate casual acquaintances with friends just because they read their FB page every day or spend a few hour a week with them drinking a beer. (As an aside here let me state that I have several people I have met through FB that I consider true friends even though I never actually physically met them. Tina, Karen, Becca and many more are my friends for the exact reasons I am about to list.)

Anyone who has read any of my blogs knows that during my stint in college, I met many amazing people who became fast friends. You know the kind. You call them in the middle of the night and say you just killed someone and all they say is “Do you need help hiding the body?” You are out in the middle of BFE with a flat tire and dead battery and you call them for help and they are out of the house in their PeeJays coming to help you? It is the Zombie Apocalypse and they are side by side with you playing whack a mole in the graveyard? That is the kind of friends I made during that time.

Sadly, we all lost contact with each other afterward and didn't hear or see each other in over 20 years. It was only through the miracle of social networking that we reconnected after so long. It was only through the miracle of our friendship that we simply picked up where we had left off without a hiccup. Ben, Mary, Tom, Thomas, Phil, Margaret, Tracy and so many others returned to my life like they had never left.

MacT© seems fascinated by the fact that I can disagree with my friends, sometimes very vehemently and “loudly” over various subjects and not have it affect (effect? Darn it I keep forgetting that one!) our friendships in any way. Fer instample, my dear friend TC. Gods knows how many times we have disagreed on, well pretty much everything. I have “insulted” him. He has questioned my mental faculties and the Snarkiness has ran deep many times. I occasionally disagree with others too. TM and MA come to mind, but usually its me and TC trading figurative blows. I love the witty and not so witty banter and challenges thrown back and forth during these exchanges, but MacT© cannot fathom how we can disagree and still remain fast friends. And we are fast friends. We can fight all day about our philosophical differences but we are still there for each other when the chips are down.

Put simply, if you have friends that you are afraid to discuss certain subjects with or are afraid to disagree with them because you don't want to hurt their feelings, then your friendship is not as solid or as deep as it could be. It is also the type of friendship that I have observed most people have. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it pales in comparison with real friends.

I am proud to say that I have friends that I would literally kill or die for and I am 200% certain that the feeling is mutual. I have disagreed with some of them and most certainly will disagree with them in the future. I look forward to it, because those disagreements often force me to look at my own beliefs and attitudes. I just hope that MacT© comes to understand that, through fate or accident or act of God, she has been inducted into that same amazing circle of friends. May all of you out there someday be so lucky as to have friends like mine.

Brew Long and Prosper!