Falling In and Falling Out

Two decades have brought me no closer to figuring out the mysteries of friendship. I often wonder why we befriend certain people... is it an innate attraction, a chemical connection in our brain, or much simpler? Do we consciously choose our friends?

Sometimes I think we fall into friendship without even knowing it. It comes to a point when someone is a natural part of your life, and you're not exactly sure when it happened or when you "became friends," but you just are. When you're driving home after a long day, you pull up in your driveway, and think to yourself I don't even remember driving home. Same scenario with friendship... you become so accustomed to it you don't remember how you got there. A friendship becomes an everyday thing, something mechanical, and, for the life of me, I can't recall how it all began. Sad, but true.  

Maybe you say we do choose our friends and friendship. I say a friendship chooses us. It is the right place, the right time, a chance meeting, and mutual attraction. Friendship grows and prospers because we find pleasure in the other's company, and we will always choose to please ourselves given the chance. And when the pleasing is done? The friendship typically ends. Sure, ending a friendship is like amputating a limb because it is so near and dear to us, but we do it for self-preservation. In the end, we know it has run its course. A friendship steers both its beginning and its end; and this is the natural order of things. Sometimes, it's for the best that some things just don't work out. As Marilyn Monroe said, and I never thought I would quote Marilyn Monroe, "I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."