Of friends...

What makes me like someone at first glance? Is that sort of liking far more assured of permanence than a liking developed slowly over time? Have I ever liked someone later if I disliked them right at the beginning? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. There are people I have liked simply by speaking once over the phone and then the friendship continues strong to this day. There are people whom I have disliked intensely at first glance and never gotten over it. There are people whom I have instantly gotten along with and continued to love even when they were not very nice to me. Its really quite hard to explain why people just like some other people.

There are also some special people in my life whom I have learnt to love very slowly – so slowly in fact that I was not even aware of it. That sort of love grows continually over time – its what I feel for my husband. I had friends in college whom I didn’t dislike intensely at first but didn’t overwhelmingly like either – I later found that they were indeed a lot more worthy of respect than I first thought. So knowing a person takes time – its like peeling the layers of an onion one by one – what may appear dry and forbidding at first turns out to be rather palatable inside. With others you just know you are going to like them – like that wonderfully ripe mango you know will be sweet as heaven.

Then there are the others – the ones you don’t notice at all – whom you merely see out of the corner of your eye and whose presence registers not a whit. Then some accidental meeting or chance remark makes you look at the same person in a completely different light. You now see so much to like – so much to admire – so perfect a friend hidden within the trappings of former superficial disinterest. And then you go from casual acquaintance to good friend with the speed of light surprising even you and leaving you slightly breathless. To anyone who observes this, it only seems as if you lack judgment and can make friends with the first person who crosses your path but that’s not true.

Yes I have made mistakes galore in my choice of friends but I have been lucky a lot more than I have been otherwise. My friends are true ones - who have stood the test of time and adversity - who would help me in the space of a heartbeat without thinking twice about the trouble it would cause them personally. So due to a fear of having lost my judgment or perhaps as the result of ignoring my gut and only going by what society dictates, my few mistakes have been fairly large ones but then one has to go through a whole lot of dross to get at the good stuff. I count myself fortunate in my friends and blessed as well that no matter how low I feel, there’s someone to say just the right words but a phone call away.