Friendships 101

What makes a friend? What makes some friendships last while others fall by the wayside? At least Facebook has been good for something. I've asked myself these questions while making and accepting friend request this past week. It seems a certain amount of time or exposure to the person helps. Some sort of extended rapport that encompasses many subjects. Effort and trust are certainly required, even from bloggers. Commonalities help as well. The shared experiences creates a bond it seems. Now having acknowledged those attributes, I was considering my closest and dearest friendships. There was an emotional intimacy to them. A platonic love, born from shared experiences over time that lead to an almost spiritual connection. Those friendships also had a trance of physicalness to them but never crossing over into sex. The vulnerability of nakedness, or sharing a bed was just an matter of expressing trust. There was also the loyalty factor. Knowing who had your back or who you could rely on in times of need. There was no judgements or harsh criticisms. I also realized that the acknowledgement of a common bond isn't enough to consider someone a true friend. Those seem to remain acquaintances. To me, the question now is how to move some of these long term friends into the realm of closer friendships? Effort, trust, honesty, common interest, a history well certainly help, but most importantly is time to build that all important rapport. I need to replace friends that have moved on or passed away. I've put off doing that while I healed emotionally and tried to become a better person. I realize that while the healing has taken place, I needed new friends to make me a better person. So now the quest begins. I hope I'm successful at it. I'm bored and lonely and need some people to hang with and give dimension to my life. Besides, at my age, I need someone to attend my funeral at some point.