You’ve Got a Friend in Me
You’ve Got a Friend in Me
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I thought that my friendship was going to last forever, yet no one can predict how growing up will bring challenges. Reminiscing about my early days of childhood, I remember that preschool was where I met my first friend named Eddy. He was the first friend I made at school and we became good friends. I thought school days were never going to be boring as long as you had friends, but that was not the case preschool year came to an end. I found out that both of us were going to go to different elementary schools. I was sad that we were not able to go to the same school, but we could still hang out by visiting each other’s houses. As elementary school days went on I was only able to hang out with my friend on small occasions such as birthdays, or holiday breaks. As middle school came I realized that Eddy was not contacting me as much as before. This time period of going to different middle schools, l felt that my friendship with Eddy might change in the future. Yet that all changed when we were reunited in high school. It was my first period history class and I was sitting in the middle section of class when I noticed a guy come in. When I noticed the guy I had this weird feeling that I knew this person, but I could not recall where I had seen him. Until I heard him speak that when it hit me he was Eddy, my old friend. I approached him with “long time no see” and he could not recognize who I was. I replied, “Dude it’s me, your old friend” after that he was able to recognize me . I invited him to play soccer with a couple friends, but he turned me down. Another day I saw Eddy with a group of guys that were making trouble in school and outside in the neighborhood. The moment I could not prepare myself for was when I saw him harassing one of my new friends I made in high school. I solo confronted him and asked him why was ganging up on the guy I know. He told me not to get involved. Yet I could not accept that he thought it was okay to bully people and I lost my reasoning and ended up brawling with him. I know that we all grow up someday, but I was unable to understand why he changed so much. I thought if we can hang out like the old days maybe his changes would not bother me. It never occurred to me that I would fight my friend because I could not agree with his wrongdoings. The question that came to me why do friends change over time?
After that moment I wonder to myself how do I define friendship. Friendship is a human necessity we all share to make our lives meaningful is that we form friendships, packs, or confidants with another human being to show the human relationship of empathy. So we can understand the connection of the many people who surround us in our daily lives. Friendship is a bond of affection, and the trust between two people. A friend is a person that you connect with to form a relationship where you can depend on someone. Everyone can relate that first step in starting their first journey to the world is that we make bonds with the people we come in contact with face to face in school. The first friend comes from entering school, a neighbor in the neighborhood, or the family friend that has children’s in the same age as you. That person enters your life as a person you feel comfortable talking about serious challenges of life. They become a person that has knowledge of yourself and becomes a factor of your health. This is what I know about friendship , but I need to find out more information about friendship I do not know.
While doing research on friendship, something I learned was the importance of the friendship paradigm. The Friendship Paradigm is the belief that you will make a friend at any moment of your life. It can be broken down to three parts: pillar , ivy, and butterfly. The pillar is the friend who is always there to support you and listen to your problems. The ivy is the friend who comes to you with their problems and sees you as a pillar. The butterfly is the friend who brings fun and excitement into your life. The friendship paradigm becomes the idea that all you care about is your friends and you think the world revolves around your friends. A problem that Speaker Melissa F. Olson American explains about the friendship paradigm that is not for everyone. She explains the mistake of the friendship paradigm is missing the importance of acceptance. She uses her daughter’s experience as an example that people who have disabilities have a hard time using the friendship paradigm. It took her daughter until she was accepted by other children to have friendship paradigm work. After learning about that I came to the reason that I need to also see how friendship affects our health.
https://www.ted.com/talks/shannon_odell_how_friendship_affects_your_brain?language=en
As I research more about the effect of friendship on health I found another interesting fact that friendship affects the brain.. The brain breaks friendship in the category of child, adolescent, and adult. In adolescence the brain is fully mature. It categorizes friendship as value, connection, understand. As teens spend more time with friends it affects the area of the brain of ventral striatum. Theory of mind is the understanding of other emotions and social brain.
After completing my research I found one answer to the question I had. I found from reading this article explains how friendships change throughout life. A sociologist is explaining the basics of what friendship is in general. Then he begins by talking about friendship at the age of childhood where children learn about empathy. At this age children have the ability to make friends easier and have openness to make any friend. A statistic stated in the article was that the ability to make friends at an early age will later develop as an important skill in making choices . Another statistic was that at this age the requirements to have friendship are openness, likeableness, and ability to have fun. The next age the article shifts to is the adolescent age, the age where friendship starts to change for the first time. In adolescent age friendship starts to rely more on loyalty , shared interest and social standards. A concept mentioned in the article was proximity. Proximity is the amount of time that people spend together. The final age that article talks about is adulthood. Adulthood is the age that all friendships are stable due the freedom it gives and lack of responsibility. In adulthood friendship is easy to make because of the shared interest. A statistical share is that marriage can be a neutral game changer to friendship because of the ability to end friendships or spark new friendships with young ones who are born.
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As my search continued for an answer to my question I came across an interesting video of ted talk. In the video they said the approximate 7yrs is when you start to lose a friend. That you need to spend at least 40–60 hours with a person to be called a casual friend. You need 80–100 hrs to be considered a friend and 200–600 hr to be considered a best friend. I found more information in another video explaining more how the internet has changed friendship. The largest number of people you can hold a relationship with is about 100–200 people. There were 3 types of friends online: active, dormant, and commemorative. The active friend is a friend you speak all time with and casually interact with. A dormant friend is the friend you rarely speak to, but this can be an active friend if you live in the same neighborhood. The commemorative friend is the friend you knew in the past, but you do not speak with them at all. The commemorative friend can also be the friends you have online due to any media source. The media multiplexity theory is the more media you have to connect with friends the stronger the friendship can be.
After my research was complete I wanted to find more answers to why friendships change, it made me create a survey that I can give to people and get their opinion. The result for question 1 was that forty seven percent of people selected that they spend 100 hr or more socializing with friends. For the second question eighty percent selected the first choice of texting. Third question: seventy percent selected the third option, half of them and thirty percent for the second option, most of them. The four questions options: fifty percent selected adolescence and the other fifty childhood. The fifth question result: ninety percent selected yes. The six questions: the results were seventy percent selected as the final option and twenty percent healthy. The seventh question I got the majority result saying why did not offer all of the above as an option. The Eight questions, everyone selected a familiar friend because I think they did not understand the other options. The ninth question was pretty even with the first option having most said yes. Tenth and Eleven I felt I needed more people to get a better result because those two questions have good discussion to share. The twelve questions: majority wanted all of the above, but selected to fill in the blank. The thirteen questions ninety percent selected the option till death due us part. The fourteen questions, everyone selected others. Fifteen and sixteen it was half for both answers. Overall, it was interesting to see the answer I got for my friends and to see their faces when I brought up a question. What I got from my survey is that everyone has their own experience with friendship and has courage to talk about it or not.
I just never realized that friends can change over time, and it is an inevitable occurrence that we all go through. One answer that I came up with is that we all grow up differently and everyone needs to make their own decision to experience life. Ending friendship is not bad because when one ends another can begin. In today’s world we have more opportunities to reconnect with friends due to the revolutionary technology boom. Everyone can have the opportunity to grow from the friends they have and have the chance to make more friends. The bonds we hold dear will be there and you never know what can happen in the future. Nevertheless you are not alone and there are people who have gone through the same experience. As we continue our daily lives we have determination not to give up and keep moving forward to a happy ending.