Friend

Mates -- Alex Cunha, Nils Butler and Marlon Teixeira

This word has so many meanings.  Like "love".

We don't have enough words to convey and describe the subtle gradations between someone you barely know on Facebook, who is your "friend", and someone whom you would trust your life with.

For me, a friend is someone I love, and who loves me.  I'm not talking about sex or desire -- too often "intimate" is a euphemism for fucking.  Intimacy is something you have with real friends.  A friend is someone I trust in important things.  But most of all, a friend is someone I can be myself with, someone I don't have to pretend with.  They love me in spite of me.  With them,  I don't have to drag out my Mr Jolly persona.  If I am taciturn, well, I don't have to bother to chat mindlessly.   And so on.

Most people don't see friends in this way.   "How to choose friends for success".  "How to get better friends"  As if they were accessories.  You know, a good handbag or elegant shoes or a super haircut.  Using each other.

We are programmed both to love and to want sex, and sometimes these needs conflict.  But as I get older, it becomes more and more clear to me that love is what matters.  Without it we shrivel.  We can, if we have to, provide ourselves with all the sex we need, if we are truly talking just about sex and not about the bond that sex often builds between people, a bond which justifies the word "love".  But we can't manufacture or buy love.

Meh.  It's late (for me), I'm dead tired and worn, and I'm not thinking too well.  I'm off to bed.