Saif Ali Shaik

March 28, 2021

Building meaningful friends for life

I reflect a lot on my life and every circumstance that happens within my life.

If someone asks me, "What are your plans for this weekend?".

My answer should ideally be, "Retrospection," -- Which is not what I say.

As a 23-year-old, I am still in the phase of discovering life little by little. I may not have all the means to understand and perceive the right thing to do. So I seek help from great people who offer guidance.

For a long time, I have been trying to build great friends. Why? Beyond 25, Friendships don't simply happen as they do before you hit 25. I would share my approach towards building great friends for life. In one way, I do want the love of my life to be a great friend too.

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I would borrow this graph to articulate my thoughts.

Friends I wish who are fewer in my life. I am certain your wishes might also look a bit like mine.

Here you go,

  1. All the conversations that you've with these friends are all about the friend herself. My only qualification to be their friend is simply to give positive replies suggesting she's right in every means.
  2. I sometimes involve with a group of friends. All seems good until one guy speaks, and the group laughs and goes on. But suddenly, when that one guy goes to pee, the rest of us in the group look at WhatsApp and Instagram. That group is not whom I want to be with for life.
  3. The friend who always wants me on the same team. It doesn't matter if we're doing the right thing. I mean a friend to her only if I make myself apparent she's right. Sharing what I think means I'm making enemies with her.
  4. Those friends are not excited about spending time together. They feel obligated to respond or say "let's meet" because we were friends in the past and feel relieved when plans to meet/talk/call are postponed. You can confirm these friends by requesting to meet 10 times and find patterns (in 7 of them) in how they decline.
  5. A friend you could marry if only one of you is extremely interested in that happening. Whatsoever the reason is, suffering, busting ego, and yearning like a little puppy become continuous forever. These are painful. I should probably forget and do something else.
  6. I studied with a friend when I'm 8 years old. That guy randomly appears when I'm 21. The situation becomes awkward. Both of us are extremely different today. Feeling Sorry is the only best thing.
  7. That friend who is not running with us in a parallel path. With 2 years passed, I would ask, "How do you manage your health" and he would try to talk about how hot the girls are around his shit. 
  8. That popular girl on Instagram probably seems popular only to you. Talk for few weeks, and this thing becomes part of the past.
  9.  That guy who sides the ambiance on his mood. It doesn't matter it's a birthday party; he would devise the conversation in a way that takes the ambiance in the room to match his anger. An ideal 50/50 is good.

All of these 9 experiences are something that fills up Q2, Q3, and Q4. These are not something we want in our lives.

It requires putting effort into finding great friends.

When you haven’t seen a good friend in a long time, the first order of business is a big catch-up—you want to know what’s going on in their career, with their girlfriend, with their family, etc., and they want to catch up on your life. In theory, once this happens, you can go back to just hanging out, shooting the shit, and actually being in the friendship. The problem is when you don’t make enough time for good friends, seeing them only for a meal and not that often—you end up spending each get-together catching up, and you never actually get to enjoy the friendship or get far past the surface.

Think about the friendship and figure out which ones aren't in Q1. You don't have to stop being friends with the kids described #1 to #9. Just a suggestion to make sure to have as few of them as possible. Invest more effort and time with friendships in Q1. Trust me, you will find bright health and life.

Most of the structure is taken from the wait, but why postTim Urban is one such blogger. His blogs enlighten me to articulate and retrospect very well. Probably that's how I tell the author he's awesome.

About Saif Ali Shaik

Hey, I'm Saif. Writing is one of my favorite habits. I journal about my learnings for the world to read. Some appreciate it if that adds value. This page you are seeing is my only social media. Welcome to my World of shower thoughts!