I think it’s important to note that you’re not going to connect on a super deep level with every friend you have. There are many kinds of friendship and some of them involve just going for coffee, or just talking about a single, certain subject, or just chatting about books, or meeting up when the other is in town and doing the “how have you been?” routine for an hour and then saying goodbye.
Not every friendship is going to be this we-connect-on-every-level-no-one-has-ever-understood-me-this-way sort of soulmate. And that’s ok.
I think it’s important to note that there’s a difference because I never had the latter, what I’ll just call a kindred spirit, until I got to high school. And after that, I wanted all of my friendships to be like that, and when they weren’t I got frustrated, and probably ended up hurting a lot of people in the process when I burnt out or realized that isn’t what I really wanted.
Kindred or casual, neither is better than the other. Both are good. It’s ok to have kindred spirits and it’s ok to have casual friends–human beings need both. You can’t get to know everyone intimately, it’s impossible and exhausting.
And I just feel like there’s this perception that you have to have a best friend, like you have to choose, and you have to hold onto them for years and years and years, and all of your friends have to be kindred spirits or they’re “acquaintances” and I’ve seen so many people categorize their friends as like … if someone doesn’t know you intimately and won’t do certain things for you that are associated with kindred spirits they’re not “real/true friends” and I keep seeing this demarcation between “friends” and “best friends” and I think that’s kind of an unhealthy attitude and I don’t really think that’s true.
Sometimes you need someone you can spill your soul to, who peers into all your dark corners, who youdon’t lie to and who you feel gets you in a way no one else has. And that’s good and that’s healing.
Sometimes you just need someone who will geek out with you about a new rock or a new album or who is down for meeting you at a diner at 3 am or whatever and that’s it and there aren’t any expectations for soul-bearing (which is exhausting let me tell u what) and you’re both fine with that. And that’s good and that’s healing.
Listen, life is full of some really amazing things, and you’re going to meet some really amazing people. Sometimes they’ll hold your hand for the whole journey, or a long portion of it, and sometimes, they’ll just grab you and spin you around before letting go. And both are good.
It doesn’t matter how long they held it, what matters is that they took your hand. What matters is that they left you laughing.
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