Trends in Friendship

It all started with the girl next door, initially people used to know only thy neighbors. Be it friendship or rivalry it was with the person who stayed next door. Then people started travelling and met new groups, at work places and during journey, they made new friends. The relationships progressed from next door to probably next cities, as the conversation always starts from ‘where are you from?’ Telephones and letters allowed people to be in touch. Means of communication changed and improved. With time it became easier to stay in touch. Internet era changed the face of communication. From knowing the entire generations of the families, to only the person, to not even seeing the face of the ‘best friend’ you made. Whoever invented this chat room concept – Hats Off!!! Teenagers for fun, lonely seeking companionship and others just for experience, almost everyone used chat rooms. Relations made in chat rooms lasted for various durations. I guess there were few best buddies and few spouses found and still maintained. I know a couple getting married, who crossed each other on web and I know a friend who met an internet pal last month, after 10 years of chatting/emailing/facebooking. Chat rooms still had some ethics. At least ‘asl’ was the first question asked, but you can easily fool that, so I take back my statement about ethics maintained in the chat rooms. Relationships made in chat rooms were generally with an id and the text. Then came the social networking era – here the relationships are with the profile, photos, status, likes and what not. How true a friendship is, when you see and talk to the person face to face or on the web, totally depends on the two individuals. The means of friendship may have evolved from next door neighbors, to cubicle mates, to service mates, to facebook, but the essence has not. It’s the two people involved who make the relation, though the means keeps changing. True friends are found and maintained, however the relationship started.