Friendship

30s is a different journey. To me it felt like I enjoyed a different world all together. I saw everything and everyone with a different perspective in my 30s. Also during this time I understood how difficult it is to build and sustain relationships.

One of such relationships that are difficult to build in 30s is friendship.

Building relationships in childhood was easy. I had to go to someone I like and I could ask for a crayon. That person became my friend by sharing a colour. Or I could tell them that I like their dress and they instantly became my friend. I could share a chocolate and in return I would earn their friendship. It was so simple to make friendships in the childhood.

Making friend new friends what little difficult as I grew up. Sharing stationary or chocolate did not help. At that age friendship demanded something much more. Helping someone with their assignment and homework was a way to win their friendship. Knowing someone in the group would earn an entire group of friends. The friendship required time and effort but it still was possible. It was not as easy as it was in the childhood but still it was not a herculean task.

When I was in my 30s, I realised how I had taken the simplicity for granted. Making friends was no longer easy. Everybody came with their past experience and emotional baggage. The past experience had been making them more careful. They were not looking for simple things but complex commitments such as trust and healing.

Building the friendship was not a quick task as well. It would take days sometimes even months to embark on a journey of trusting the other person. Even a simple mistake could easily break that trust and it could no longer be won back. Every person had learnt from their bad friendships and was careful not to get hurt again. The shell that they had created around themselves was not to be broken easily. People preferred staying in their protective shell alone than being in company with someone who would break not only the shell but also there trust and confidence.

In this time instead of making lifetime friendship I noticed that others preferred to keep the relation at bare minimum and at a safe distance. Interactions became only when they were needed. Meeting up was not even a far fetched possibility. The distance that people would want to maintain was justified based on their past unforgiving, painful friendships.

I remember helping a lot of people to earn their trust, but despite the best efforts they did not reciprocated the warmth. I remember extending my hand of friendship towards them and still being rejected. The reason always was "it is not you but me".

I do not blame them to stay away from people because they had be hurt by the people they trusted the most. I myself had gone through it but still kept my mind open to meeting other people.

Yet I can say that I hardly made any friends in my 30s. The friends that I still have with me were from my childhood or 20s. The friendship in 30 felt fickle and faded quickly than expected. That is when I came to the conclusion that making friends in 30 days nearly an impossible task.