Ah, Friends …almost everyone saw the show at least once but none of us have people we can truly call friends. Or we call them but are they really our best friends? Sure, there are great relationships out there that lasted through someone’s life but what is the reason it did. I might sound a bit nostalgic about this topic but that’s because I’m longing for what others view as a true friendship so I decided to do the second best thing, come up with a theory that would explain my lack of deep social skills and maybe get some internet points in the meanwhile. The whole theory is solely based on my observations and countless chats with several people that mean a lot to me.
It’s quite simple, since I’m not really into math or anything but it all boils down to 3 elements that I’m going to go a bit more in depth. So the formula for true friendships boils down to proximity plus frequency multiplied that with time. It has a few stages that I’m also going to explain. 
The first variable in this formula is proximity, and by that I mean spatial proximity, character proximity and proximity of interests. If someone who’s good at math will help me out to create a real formula for this, just hit me up. It’s quite important for a healthy friendship to have a balance between these three types of proximity, keeping it interesting and meaningful for both parties. In the long run that creates a stronger bond and helps you avoid the pitfalls of nostalgia sharing friendships which I’m also going to tackle a bit later. Spatial proximity it’s basically a given, and goes hand in hand with frequency. When things are closer they tend to interact more often, giving you a bit of chemistry in here too, that’s why longer lasting friendships tend to start in random places like kindergarten, the playground, school. When we are younger and just start forming our social skills we tend to interact more with the people we meet in the places we spend most of our time. Seems a bit forced but I see it quite natural. The need of micro communities is strong in our genes. There you have all three types of proximity or the chance to fill up the three slots faster because you won’t interact with someone that’s near and totally different than you just for the sake of it, especially when you are young. Being that picky little brat knows more about your social skills that might help you than the rational 7 year old part of you. And it’s always up to both parties to maintain that proximity and frequency. First you are schoolmates, then hanging out at the same playground, sleepovers, family meets family and voila, you got yourself a true friend. Well, that’s if the time decides to keep that proximity and frequency, and both of you obviously.
Now let’s talk about frequency, tune on your favorite radio station and let’s go for it. Frequency isn’t as complicated as proximity with it’s different layers. It’s just keeping a steady line of interaction in time with your friend. It’s up to you two how you do that as long as it keeps things reasonable for both. It can be once a week or everyday, different people have different needs and wants when it comes to actual interaction but if you two know each other as you already should, it goes as a given. The formula would dictate that the smaller the proximity the higher the frequency of interaction. I’m going to explain this with a few graphs a few paragraphs later.
And the last element is time, the one that never forgives and never forgets and also to be honest doesn’t care about you. Your friendship faces time, not the other way around so it’s up to you folks to decide who wins, but the winner is always the time. That doesn’t have to make your relationship with awkward though. Enjoy every moment, be it with your best friend or with anyone that you really care about.
Let’s get cooking with tons of spices, because the topic is getting hot. In the first image you can see basically a normal friendship cycle defined by the three elements in our formula. The closer the proximity, the higher the frequency of interaction, with time the frequency might dwindle but as long as the proximity is kept the interactions should get more meaningful. Also, this doesn’t happen in a void so you can always get new elements in the mix, such is the nature of the social creature. For example you have a childhood friend that went to school together, were living near each other, went to the same college, have similar hobbies and even work in a similar field. You might not have the same frequency as before but the thing that glues everything together is still proximity in all its entirety. I would argue that Proximity in this day and age is more important than frequency. If you think otherwise please let me know. But I’ll try to prove my point with the next image.
It takes just a little change in proximity, especially spatial one and the whole thing starts to crumble. Even though you maintain a steady frequency, that with time also dwindles. The other day I was reading an article that gives 10 reasons why long distance relationships make for the best bonds and the arguments are quite weak to be honest. You can see the article for yourself here if you choose to. The article makes friendship sound trivial focusing more on one element of proximity, proximity of character, implying that you can find a so called soulmate that you will always get along with no matter where you are. To be honest that’s not really a friendship, we will encounter a lot of people that we click with, those can become your friends but most likely will not, basically because of the formula. And here’s why: you have the right base for a potential friendship, being similar in character but as long as you ignore the other elements in the formula it all goes in vain. You might get along great when you see each other, but that’s maybe once a month, you might have the spatial proximity but the frequency is not quite there. That’s if you don’t really invest in the relationship, this way at best you can call each other buddies, a wasted opportunity for a disconnected generation.
The other elements you need to factor in when spatial proximity grows between you is two phenomena that occur when the spatial divide grows even further. First one the nostalgia train and the second is that both of you have totally different lives outside that so called friendship that might include other, real friendships.
Some might argue that after a certain point nostalgia train is the natural evolution of a real friendship, the only thing important to consider is the length of the relationship expressed in time, especially if the first elements were quite constant. It’s a natural progression of great friendships, but if this is the only element that keeps a relationship afloat especially give the spatial proximity divide, then it’s not quite the friendship you would want or think that it is. The bonds that people create when the interact more physically are more important than the overall interaction, or seeing each other once a year and remembering the good old days. Yeah, it was fun, but not a lot is keeping you together or helping you creating and maintaining that relationship because as soon as the two of you part ways again, and after that euphoria of seeing each other passes, you go on your merry way and do your thing far away with your own circle of people, family, cat and so on. Until you meet again, rinse and repeat and you got yourself not really a friend but only the idea of a true friend. Call it a never ending honeymoon.The more you think about it the sadder it gets, but hey, put on a happy face when you see your high school friend again, except that that’s not really your friend anymore. Phew, I actually managed to explain both phenomena in one take, hopefully it was quite clear.
Some of the things here are applicable to a group of friends or even romantic relationships, but hey, I’m not observing those at least for the time being. I know that the formula might have flaws and it won’t ever put everyone in the same bucket, unlike those chicken wings, uhhh, but it’s a small observation of mine because I’m still trying to figure out if I still have a chance of calling someone in my life my true friend, the best part is that I can proudly say that I have some candidates. If you have any ideas on how I can improve upon the formula, some personal stories or some feedback on this article, let’s be friends, even virtual ones. Have a good one!
Probabil fiecare țară are anumite tipuri de oameni care poți să-i recunoști ușor. Luînd în considerație populația Chinei astfel de tipuri se găsesc mult mai des și în colțuri diferite ale țării însă sunt ușor de recunoscut. În acest articol voi caracteriza cîteva tipuri de persoane care le vei găsi peste tot în China cu unele particularități neesențiale. Sunt cu mult mai multe decît voi descrie aici însă pentru început, doar patru:
Victor Lebedev 