What’s that old saying, 'keep your friends close, and your enemies closer' ...
 |
| Keep Your Enemies Closer ..... Or I Will Send Round The Boys. |
...... well apparently we British take that adage very much to heart. A recent
survey found that the average Brit claims to have fifteen friends, but
only trusts four of them.
When I read that, I had to think about it a lot. If you can't trust them, then why are they a friend? …. was the first thing that came into my mind. Now I admit that I am something of a odd cove by current thinking, being more than a bit of a loner with very few friends, and perhaps none that close these days.
But even so, I have had moments in the past when my social life expanded to include a number of individuals. These have all been people who I thought liked me, and whom I thought I could trust ... I have never knowingly listed as 'a friend', someone who I didn't think I could trust, although later I may have found out otherwise about some people.
Perhaps the people being interviewed didn't really understand the question? Mayhap they included 'acquaintances, and work colleagues' in the initial estimate of friends, and then dropped their lists to include only real friends when they excluded those they couldn't trust?
We live in a society where to not have a large circle of friends, or 'likers' as they are known on social media, is seen as a real weakness, fault, disability, or even a sign that you have the plague .... it can actually make things such as getting a will 'witnessed' awkward, because there is an inherent assumption in our society that you have friends or family who can do it.
I have a medium(ish) number of acquaintances, both at work and socially such as in the pub, but although I have a cordial relationship with many of these people, few are what I would name as friends in the traditional way of thinking. I don't have social media pages such as Facebook or Twitter, and so no vast legions of 'followers', and I am OK with that. I have learnt to live comfortably in my own skin, and with my own company.
Perhaps that makes me something of a social leper these days, I don't know, but at least I don't have to discount 2/3rds of my 'friends' as 'untrustworthy' ... what sort of definition of 'friends' is that?
But even so, I have had moments in the past when my social life expanded to include a number of individuals. These have all been people who I thought liked me, and whom I thought I could trust ... I have never knowingly listed as 'a friend', someone who I didn't think I could trust, although later I may have found out otherwise about some people.
Perhaps the people being interviewed didn't really understand the question? Mayhap they included 'acquaintances, and work colleagues' in the initial estimate of friends, and then dropped their lists to include only real friends when they excluded those they couldn't trust?
We live in a society where to not have a large circle of friends, or 'likers' as they are known on social media, is seen as a real weakness, fault, disability, or even a sign that you have the plague .... it can actually make things such as getting a will 'witnessed' awkward, because there is an inherent assumption in our society that you have friends or family who can do it.
I have a medium(ish) number of acquaintances, both at work and socially such as in the pub, but although I have a cordial relationship with many of these people, few are what I would name as friends in the traditional way of thinking. I don't have social media pages such as Facebook or Twitter, and so no vast legions of 'followers', and I am OK with that. I have learnt to live comfortably in my own skin, and with my own company.
 |
| Being A Social Leper Not So Tough These Days |
Perhaps that makes me something of a social leper these days, I don't know, but at least I don't have to discount 2/3rds of my 'friends' as 'untrustworthy' ... what sort of definition of 'friends' is that?
I would guess that there are many more like us - as I include myself in that category - than society would have us believe. If I believed the TV news for example, everyone is interested in sports. I get frustrated when presented with "journalists" in F1 pits fawning over celebrities who drive very fast for a living when I'm trying to learn about important world events.
ReplyDeleteComing back to the subject though, perhaps one can have one friend that you don't trust as far as you could throw them; to add to the dictums : "better the Devil you know". I don't have any of those myself but I can see how some might.
BTW. That's the first time I've seen the word "mayhap" - and my spillchecker too!
First time for 'mayhap' adverb archaic ~ perhaps; possibly. I use it all the time .... mayhap that's why I am such a billy nomates?
DeleteAnother old post being read by someone who is locked down somewhere in the world. Oddly I joined the social media circus when I finished work. Mainly at the insistence of work colleagues who wanted to keep me in the loop. I have kept it to just one such account though.
ReplyDelete