The topic of friends and the nature of friendship is one that has often occupied by mind, a fact exacerbated perhaps by facebook, which will call the faintest acquantaince a "friend". It is a subject that I think is much in many people's minds, though perhaps not in the same excruciating (pun intended) detail as in mine own, and because of that I would like to share some thoughts, though for a scanty readership.
What comes first to mind is a quote that a friend reminded me was from The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis:
In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald's reaction to a specifically Caroline joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him 'to myself' now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald. Hence true Friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to become a real friend. They can then say, as the blessed souls say in Dante, 'Here comes one who will augment our loves.'
That is something that resonates very deeply with me. For I have been privileged to know a great many wonderful people and can only marvel at each and every one. Some I have known more deeply and for those I am most grateful. I cannot help but have a sort of regret for those I have not known so well, even though I know that as a finite being I cannot know everyone fully, and that this is natural. Some perhaps have wanted to know me better and I have been too busy to take the time to allow them to, or to let my walls be broken down enough that they may see who I truly am. There are others whom I would have liked to know better, but seemed to prefer the company of others. The web of friendships is truly a strange thing.
I remember as a child I used to be so frustrated with those who only wanted to sit around and talk, and was determined that when I became an adult I would never be that way—or, similarly, that I would never grow up, if that was what it meant to be grown up. Yet I have come now to appreciate conversation. For this is how we reach out to others: how we bridge that gap between us. And often, as a dear friend of mine once said, it is an act of rescue.
I tend to prefer one-on-one conversations because that is when I get to know people best: because that is when they are most willing to be themselves. That is where their beauty truly shines forth.
If people are willing to be themselves in a group of people, they must be willing to be seen without all their defences of pride built up, and few are that humble. I know I certainly am not. There is still a beauty to the interactions between friends illustrated by the quote I began by referencing, but there is another side as well, a side that applies to the complete opposite: the relations of one friend to another.
There is something so fascinating to me in the fact that on any important subject I may talk to countless people and the conversation will never turn out the same way, not only because of all the possible tangents, but because people are so different. Even those who hold the same belief look at it from wholly different angles. This is why we can learn so much from each other. It is also why suicide is such a tragedy. For if we lose anyone, we lose all we might have learned from him. So too why it hurts us so much to lose a friend, even if we should have countless others, for we know that no one can ever replace that one. Even so much as a lost conversation burns with the pain that only can the knowledge of a treasure forever lost.
