my 'best friend' zone

over the years, i've thought a lot about my relationships with the people around me and the way these things change over time and all other arbit related stuff. i thought i had my heart fairly well mapped out, and to be fair, it has been pretty accurate. a lot of things have changed though.

i've always found it easy to make friends, but it usually takes a lot of time for my friendships to grow really deep. over the years, i've noticed that i make best friends faster than i used to. it's probably due to a lot of factors (for example, more phone time compared to 4 years ago when i didn't have a cellphone, more freedom to travel now than when i was in school, etc).

but it isn't just about the opportunity to connect. i've realised that my friendships have been getting deeper. most of my friendships when i were in school revolved around common activities...stuff like playing together, traveling together, etc. in college, it was more about making a mental connection, and eventually (atleast to some extent) a philosophical connection. thankfully, i've managed to preserve a few of my old friendships to this day, and so i've now got some friends who i associate with very differently from others. so differently, in fact, that if they were to exchange notes about me someday, they'd probably be half in doubt that they were talking about the same person. not that i behave differently around different friends (which i do, but it's been diminishing over the years), but just that they've seen entirely different sides of me.

finally, the deepest connections i've ever made were on the frontier that was left for the very end: the emotional plane.

it may seem very strange, but it actually took me 23 years before i could make an emotional connection with someone i wasn't related by a blood relation.

i guess that's why i miss her so much more than any of my other friends i've drifted apart from.