A couple of weeks ago in an Ethics lecture we talked about friendship. What friendship is, why it’s important. Our lecturer told us that friendship is usually characterised by three things: attraction, reciprocity, and proximity.
As we talked about what friendship is I thought about my friends, old and new, and I was so thankful. I remember when we moved interstate for college I was afraid that I would find it really hard to make new friends and be away from old ones. But somehow I did make new friends and have kept in touch with some old ones.
But I’ve really felt the impact that proximity has on friendships. I’m sure we’ve all experienced it in some way. We’re no longer friends with all our friends from high school. And a big reason for this is proximity. We no longer see each other five days a week. In many ways this is okay. Friendships do end, that’s natural.
But I rebelled against the proximity factor as well. I don’t want my friendships with some people to end. Whether it be new friends that I’ve made here or old friends back home. Lack of proximity will become a factor again, as it already is now. 
When you’re living far away from your friends, and you don’t see them regularly you have to put in more effort. And I’ve often found that since I’m the one who has moved away then I am often the one who has to put in the effort of maintaining contact, or at the least organising to catch up when I’m back home. Things got better once I realised this! I think it will be different again when college finishes because everyone is moving away from college and the responsibility of making contact is more equally shared.
The reciprocity part of friendship also poked at me. I’ve seen how loving and generous people at college are. And sometimes I wonder if I’m being like that. Nobody wants to be a bad friend, me included. So I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a friend and how I can be better.
So I have a question and you can comment in the box below (hint: if you don’t have a Google/Wordpress/etc. profile then you can choose the “Name/URL” option next to “Comment as:” and just type your name there and leave URL blank).
What do you think makes someone a good friend?
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