friends-and-friendship.txt an attempt at understanding people

Original Author: Sahil Gautam <printfdebugging@gmail.com>
Homepage: <https://printfdebugging.in/>
License: GNU GPL v2

==============================================================================
CONTENTS

    1. Perseption and Reality             perseption-and-reality-in-friendship
    2. What Kind of Person the Other Is                         kind-of-person
    3. The Level of Interactions                         level-of-interactions
    4. Risk Capacity and Interdependence            risk-capacity-and-interdep
    5. Complications are Unavoidable                 unavoidable-complications

==============================================================================
Perseption and Reality                    perseption-and-reality-in-friendship

    the perception of friendship is that of interdependence, a friend makes up
    for the weeknesses of the other friend, and it's a 'you first' relation.
    atleast that's what the movies portray friendship as. it's not wrong, but
    rather an incomplete truth.

    friends are also people, and they have their own lives and problems to
    manage, and it's very easy to stretch the movie definition of friendship
    and start expecting them to behave a certain way. the word is not the
    thing, and friends and friendship in itself doesn't really mean anything,
    just words trying to describe human relationship.

    very frequently we find ourselves in a conversation with some stranger and
    we really enjoy the conversation, would we call them a friend? how about a
    colleague who treates everyone nicely, would you call them a friend?...
    what if they ask you for a 'big help', would you go out of your way to
    help them.

    friendship describes a wierd mix of social circle interactions, the
    likeness of those interactions, and unrealistic expectations built on top
    because of social conditioning.

==============================================================================
What Kind of Person the Other Is                                kind-of-person

    your perception of that person is the most important parameter. if your
    perception is that the other person is very cunning, steps on your toes,
    tries to shadow you, is disrespectful, or is pretending to be something
    else when interacting with you, or has a shallow character, trying to
    score points every now and then, then you would avoid that person as much
    as you can, and if you have to interact, you would try to keep them short.

    on the other hand, if your perception says that the other person is not
    hostile towards, treates everyone with respect, minds his own business,
    doesn't seek validation i.e. is mature, knows what he is doing, gives
    genuine feedback and digests criticism gladly... you would like to be
    around that person, would look forward to what they have to say on some
    matter.

    if my experience says "bad person", i would avoid them, otherwise i would
    be open to possibilities, not jumping on conclusions hastily.

==============================================================================
The Level of Interactions                                level-of-interactions

    if the person is not of a "bad-kind", then i would be open for further
    interactions with them. based on the interactions, i either think ":) it
    was a good interaction, and i am looking forward to the next one", or in
    case the interaction was not that great "nice guy, trying to figure out 
    things". so based on the level of interactions, i make an image of that 
    person, mostly in positive terms.

    but if i notice any inconsistencies in what they say and what their
    "actions and face and eyes" say, i would usually ask them about it, and
    based on their answer i would start avoiding them, putting them in the
    "not a good person category".

==============================================================================
Risk Capacity and Interdependence                   risk-capacity-and-interdep

    risk capacity means how "out of the way" one would want to go to help
    someone by putting their resources at risk. like lending money for
    example, the other person might not ever return it. kind-of-person and 
    level-of-interactions do have some influence in risky decisions, but
    these are not the deciding ones. familiarity matters here.

    if the person is in a good capacity to mitigate my risk quickly, and i
    know them well, through family connections or friend circle connections,
    then i am more likely to go out of my way to help them, risking my
    resources. knownness is important here.

==============================================================================
Complications are Unavoidable                        unavoidable-complications

    social relations is simple if i keep my dependence on others to the
    minimum and just maintain a simple table of who lands where based on the
    above written parameters, but it can get quite complicated in situations
    such as colliding ambitions, competition, internal behind the back
    politics and "having too many bad people around".

    the simplest approach is to forget about whatever this blog says and just
    keep living like the introvert i am and know that everything will be fine
    if i keep my focus on the things that matter :).

==============================================================================
vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl:fdm=marker:fmr=<<<,>>>:ma:noro