I don't remember when or where.. but someday I read that a person can never have more than 6 soul-close friends... that means no more than 6 people in anyone's lives knows everything about them - their deepest, darkest secrets, so to speak. And it set me thinking. And I literally counted off my fingers that I probably had 7 very close friends, but not everyone made it to the first tier amongst that. While all 7 would eventually find out whatever it is that I wanted to share with them, it was not necessarily in the same timeframe. And so I was discussing with KG yesterday that that was what had transpired between college and now. 10 years later... we retain less than 10 friends of the 100s that we met. And it wasn't because we were lousy at keeping in touch or anything.. but to put it philosophically, life just happened.
After hanging up however, I was wondering what happened if you featured in someone's 6, who didn't feature in yours or vice versa? You know what I mean? What if you considered someone super close and shared all with them (or vice versa) but they didn't reciprocate equivocally? The ones in which you both featured in one anothers' lists is of course the material that makes life-long friendships and "best friends" tags. But on the other hand, like unrequited love, does unrequited super-close friendship also wither and die? One would hypothesize that it would have to. I mean nothing can survive just one-sided, can it? Yet it happens. Just because the person you confide in doesn't confide back to you, doesn't mean his/her advice to you isn't sound or that they aren't genuinely helping out, does it? No. But of course if you did expect reciprocation, you are left spurned and such cases might indeed meet the end of the road. And if the circle of friends was entirely encompassingly finitely restricted to reciprocations, then the circles would meet at some point. And that would make it limited.
Enough confusion. After a little more analysis, I came up with numbers. Through school, you were likely to have a maximum of 2 soul-friends... college: 2-3; post-graduation: 1-2; work: 1-2 and then a big, fat full-stop. Thereafter, even if you meet new people, even if you forge new friendships, they are never going to equate to what you already have. It's difficult to attain a closeness with no entirely new and parallel things happening alongside with this new person. And that's how the friendship circle remains restricted.
Some food for thought huh? How many soul-friends do you have? Count on..
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4 comments:
Very Good one J! The fact is a very valid one.. it is like those clouds that come, pour their heart out and disperse.. sometimes they get dark, there are streaks of lightning and rumble of thunder.. immense rain.. but when it all clears out, there's just you and a few.. How did you land up with the magic number 6? Just random?
Bala-> What an analogy! Good one! I think I remember reading 6 on that article somewhere... but even otherwise sounds about right. Try counting.. surely you'll be within the mark. Thanks for the comment! And isn't it time to sleep? :O
I have heard of 4, or I think it was for me personally, after taking some numerology test...I wanted to write a similar blog about ageless friendship but then my thot faded away. You have rekindled it and now I will just pen it down.
Sachin-> I am confused. A numerology test told you how many close friends you would have or did I misinterpret entirely? You should blog more often and you know that! Thanks for the comment and keep visiting!
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