We sat in a cafe talking away the spring afternoon. We were mid deep into a discussion about friendships. She told me her story. The one about her “Best friend” and how overnight they had a fall out and where now barely speaking. She told me of her many attempts to mend the friendship, and though no matter how much time had transpired how she didn’t give up hope that her friend would come around.

“How can someone just do that? Don’t promises and vows mean anything anymore?”
“If I’ve learned anything about friendships is that you can’t force someone to want to be your friend. You don’t control their heart. If they want out, they’ll find the lamest excuse to exit”
“It really makes me sad that with the wave of hand someone can just give up on you, for no apparent reason at all.”
“I think that’s one of those startling realities we face as we grow older. Best friends aren’t Forever. People will come and go. Some will hurt us. Some will use us. Some will simply let us down in expectation.”

Later that day I got to thinking about friendships. There are people who will profess to have hundreds of friends just because their profile on Facebook tells them so. But out of those hundreds, how many do you really know? How many do you interact with socially in a day to day basis? And more importantly how many of them have been there when you’ve needed a helping hand?

Friends are supposed to be the siblings life didn’t give to us. In some way they make us more complete. They make experiences memorable, enjoyable or at the very least bearable. A real friend has seen you triumph, has seen you fail, and has been there to shoulder the weight of the world with you.

But the easiest way to realize who your real friends are is by noticing who is there for you when your days are gray. It is then, that friendships are tested. It’s easy to be there for someone when their life is going at full speed. But what if your life halts? What if there’s a down pour of trials and tribulations that leave you vulnerable and exposed? That’s when you know who you’re friends are.

When someone you love lets you down, especially someone you expected to be there always, it shakes your faith right where you stand. It leaves you in disbelief that someone can just choose to be a friend when it’s convenient for them. Because friendships aren’t supposed to be selfish that way. But we sometimes fall into relationships that are a one way street. We give, and they take, we need, and they flee. And maybe that’s where the heartbreaking disappointment sets in. In the fact that you would give the world for this person’s happiness but they wouldn’t do the same for you.

A real Friendship is not like Facebook, where you can sign in and out whenever you want. You can’t deactivate someone out of your life. Fall off the face of the earth and come back to pick up where you left off when you feel it’s convenient to activate them again.

The love in a friendship cannot endure that kind of indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another’s heart, or its flame burns low. Truth is that it takes a few blows to distinguish a friend from an acquaintance. But even if certain people opted out of your life we must remember it was their choice. That the reality can be startling but not life defying. Because the truth is we are all imperfect and we all fail to live up to others expectations at one point or another.

I believe that every encounter in life is a journey, and every journey, a lesson in life. Some people stay in our lives forever and shape your ideals and our being; others stay a little while and shape our character and our strength. But regardless they become a part of you. Always engraved within you. We are the outline and they are the color that gives us depth. When people walk away from you, let them go. Your destiny is never tied to someone who leaves you, and it doesn’t mean they are bad people. It just means that their part in your story is over.

All we can really do is believe, against all odds, that if we keep our hearts open someone will appreciate that, and not take it for granted. And that in the end it’s not the quantity of friends that make life rich… but the quality and the depth of the relationships we see evolve, that truly will make us happy.