Knowing people

Recent conversations had set me thinking. How do you define a friend?

Well a conversation with a friend in Starbucks today sparked a very interesting debate. Many people we know in university are there to leech on us. They are there for the merry times, but disappears in times of need. They come to us when they need our help, but ditch us when we need theirs. If that is so, do we still regard them as our friends? And after talking to him, I got reminded of my project situations. After Jason & Dallan graduated, I felt like I have no one to go to in Chemical Engineering anymore. So for projects, I don't dare to approach anyone and allowed the profs to allocate me into random groups, apparent in CN3121, CN3135 and CN4122. I honestly thought that the friends whom I hang out with more would approach me, but I was wrong. Not only that, I was desperately finding a design project group during winter vacation but no one came and ask me. To the extent that I was almost thrown to a random group again, but luckily I was adopted into my current group. Even though I don't know them as well as others, I was really glad that we bonded well and had really good teamwork. And back to my initial question, what do you call a friend?

Another conversation with another friend looked into how well you know someone. If you haven't met, but have been talking on social platforms for awhile, do you think you know that person well? Comparatively, you have seen a friend for a few years, but is that friend really what you know? How sure are you that the image you see is the real he/she, and not a facade that was put up to hide their true self? Everyone has masks, they put up masks to protect themselves, to prevent themselves from getting hurt. If so, how sure are you that you are able to look through all the masks that were put up? After watching The Fall, I am not sure about that anymore. Paul Spector, seemingly a family man, a good father with a good job as a bereavement counselor, ended up to be a brutal serial killer of 4. So with that said, do you think you are closer with someone you sat with for classes fro 4 years, or someone you just talked to on social platforms for 4 days? To me, it honestly doesn't matter, because both ways, I am only going to the mask that you put up for me to know.

I guess I am still better at complaining about life.