Many people know how to make friends through example but in the process they are lost because of false expectations, loss of interest or other reason. The purpose of this article is to get people aware of what they should expect and of what they can appreciate from friends they make in life.

 Firstly friends come and go in life. It is not that we can consciously control the flux of people. Sometimes we are left with the best of friends, sometimes they disappear and we are left with little more than users but I think that if you can manage your personal life you should be able to avoid being disappointed about who your friends are, how to make new friends and how they can be kept.

 One has to ask oneself what is the reason for the friendship if one really wants to be honest about any purpose in the making of a bond because that is what friendship is, a link between two or more people which can be created or destroyed depending on its strength or conversely on its weakness.

That is not to say that weak friendships cannot evolve into something more durable. I will liken this to friends I acquired while working at a drama umbrella organization. I had not counted on making lasting friends because of the flux of people and their purpose; they came to a center for service not for friendship. As it stood, years later I re-met some of the people I came in touch with because our interests in the dramatic arts have endured. So something prevailed outside of the service that was rendered. I found a commonality between myself and certain members of that organization, such that we wanted to remain in contact and enjoy each other’s company. We liked each other besides just being members of a larger group and were able to socialize outside that environment.

Several points then have been mentioned as to the dynamics of the friend making process: there has to be something in common for people to converse, to begin with. There has to be a particular need to fulfill, independent of whether that is selfish or not. The friends would then work out some kind of bond wherein they consent to a certain functionality of their association.

In keeping friends, it helps to have a continued interest in what sparked their friendship int he first place but it is not a requirement. Many friends mature into couple relationships for example and still keep ties with friends they had from an earlier period when there was no interest in meeting the opposite sex or in the case of gay and lesbian relationships the same sex.

There has to be an enjoyment of the company that you are able to get from the association. If the person you met earlier has only wanted your friendship only temporarily, if the basis of the friendship was not well understood or if sex or romance got into the picture, then the new friendship that comes out from that ( if it survives), is most often different from what existed before. Generally speaking, people are never always the same, their personalities change throughout life as do their tastes including that regarding the kinds of friends they like to keep.