New friends

Last week, I was on the phone to a friend and I found myself saying “When you get to a certain age, you just don’t want to open up anymore.” Before you judge, let me put this into context.

It was a conversation of about making new friends in life. Yes, we can all be nice and make friends. But are they really friends, if all you do is be nice around each other? If you genuinely want to make friends – not just find someone to spend lunch with at work, then you will need to open up and give something of yourself. That’s what youth is, children they are constantly open to the world – oh so much trust! Then somewhere along the way they learn to withdraw.

It is not that I am incapable of making new friends. People these days (not everyone, not just me either) we make the effort, we “open up”, then we hold back… on the rest. What I mean is even when we do open up; we still don’t open up. Playing a role, like an actor before camera lenses, we hide behind the façade.

Every now and then, we find ourselves in a position where we must open up. So we give a little not a lot to test the water till we feel safe.

Sometimes it just takes so much courage to simply live.