Mon Ami

"We live in a culture that often talks about community, connectedness, social networking, etc where very little true community actually exists and where we elevate acquaintances to friends and have very few true friends." -The Curt Jester, whose blog is both informative and entertaining.

This is something I have often thought about. It seems that the meaning of friend has been forgotten, or delegated to a far lower position than it previously held. People now communicate with people all across the world, but how many of these could truly be called friends?

Let us take a look at a definition:

From the American Heritage Dictionary:

friend

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.

So it seems that definition of ordinary usage has made its way into the dictionary as well. So much for the purity of the word friend. It is not the first to travel this road, though, nor shall it be the last. After all, "silly" once meant "innocent".

With our society's focus on quantity rather than quality and the ease with which we can communicate with hundreds upon hundreds of people, is it any surprise that we no longer have the time for true friendship? Friends—to use the more exclusive meaning of the word—are not made overnight. To have friends, you must learn to know and trust them, which takes time. People do not have energy for that when they scatter their time among so many different people and enterprises.

Perhaps I am in the minority with this viewpoint, but I do not think that acquaintances should be elevated to the level of friends. Friends are people you know and trust, whom you can rely on. They are people with whom you want to be and who want to be with you; to whom you want to talk, and who want to talk to you. When you need help, it is your friends to whom you look for help, and in turn you help them through their difficulties, easing the pains of this life in ways that no acquaintance of a brief moment could. Yet still my attempt to define the word falls short of its meaning. Thus is my thought, though perhaps it is no more than relic of ages past. As goes the old saying, "Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold."

Even with this view in mind, the matter is uncertain. Definitions are inherently arbitrary, based solely on our own perceptions, and one major question remains: when does an acquaintance become a friend?