DQ: Are your friends actually strangers?

[SugarfootWillie 383]

It has been said before that your best friend is actually your closest stranger. Do you believe this? Why? Can you understand the logic behind such a statement?

 

Personally: I agree with this statement to an extent. I broke ties with my best friend of 12+years, and after having some time away, I noticed that the brother was not the person I had understood him to be. To phrase that more accurately: my friend behaved the way I had understood only in my presence.

 

Beyond that, in a day-to-day setting, one can easily predict how a friend would react to a given stimuli; however, in moderate to high stress situations, one's ability to accurately predict how their friend would react decreases, and in fact a stranger would perform a better job of predicting.

[StormLantern the 1st 427]

 I can understand the logic of the statement. I feel that the idea is that you can never truly know anyone, only what they choose to show you. I've had several friends that have turned out to be not who I expected them to be.

 

 What the statement lacks is the understanding that people are, in general, bad at hiding their feelings from anyone paying close enough attention. In that sense, I feel that in many situations we can be willfully ignorant, dismissing certain behaviors and traits because we like the person, when those same behaviors and traits would be condemned in a stranger or acquaintance. In my case, I was able to look back and see that my former friends' actions were perfectly in character for them, and that I really had no reason to be surprised.

 

 As for your statements about predicting our friends' behaviors, I disagree as far as it applies to me. I can tell you how my friends will act in daily circumstances with relative accuracy, but with stressful situations I can predict, sometimes to the second, exactly what my friends will do. I think I'm the exception in that case.

 

 Worth noting is that I hesitate to call anyone a friend until I've seen how they react under stress.

 

 I wonder sometimes if I don't have an unhealthy view of friendship.

[SugarfootWillie 383]

@, I like how you go about making friends. You definitely don't have an unhealthy view of friendship and you insure your safety in the process.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,632]

I agree with this, except for best friends. Most of my life, I have had some 'friends' during school usually, but these people are usually did not really connect with and sooner or later, they faded away. It made me wonder how much of friends we really were in the end. Being able to go from supposedly being friends to basically not even knowing each other, that signals that we were just strangers that sometimes associated with each other.

 

That is different with best friends, offline I have 3 of them and I have known them for many years and to this day I still feel a connection with them. A positive connection. I can talk with them without worry and I can have deep discussions about interests and likes, that is when I know there is no 'stranger' aspect involved, but I do think this is a rare thing and that is why I cherish the best friends that I have, both online and offline. My social life is a disaster as it always has been and I have a very, very rough time making friends. Especially friends that are more than strangers.

[Malinter 3,064]

I have the opposite problem. I know them better than they know themselves XD

 

I can clearly see the eventual train wreck their lifestyles are going to lead to. Mine was going in the same direction at one point but when I decided to change, i couldn't convince them to do the same. We are still friends with one another but I can never be as close th them as I once felt.

[SugarfootWillie 383]

I have the opposite problem. I know them better than they know themselves XD

 

I can clearly see the eventual train wreck their lifestyles are going to lead to. Mine was going in the same direction at one point but when I decided to change, i couldn't convince them to do the same. We are still friends with one another but I can never be as close th them as I once felt.

I bet your friends have a similar sort of clairvoyance when observing you.

In relation to myself, I probably am blind to a trait of my character because it's a part of my "auto-pilot, that which goes on of itself" self. I'm making that assumption via experiences I've had with psychiatrists.

[Kenshiro 13,493]

Most important thing is having good memories with our friends.They may be fade away but strong memories stay still...Hope none of us have to lost our best friendships...

[EpicEnergy 23,221]

Not really, my friends are friends.

[Evil Pink One 13,507]

At a point... Everyone is a stranger....

[Stardust 641]

Depends how you see it I guess u will never know anyone 100 per cent if thats what ya mean

 

[Slendy 2,918]

Mhm. My very close friends aren't strangers at all. But there are a few friends who think that we're close and I sometimes wonder whether we really are or if they're just lying to me. Doesn't feel like it sometimes.

[Cagey 4,248]

Certainly. The only person you’ll ever know completely is yourself, and sometimes not even that. Even my oldest friends are often foreign to me.