Friendship. How it works, how to get some, how to keep them.

I've spent over thirty years practicing the art of friendship, and since some of you complain that you have insufficient friends, I will try and share what I know.

I'll do it in my own style, (which isn't for everyone) but the facts and ideas should be easily enough to assimilate.

I'm doing this to give those of you who feel they need more human contact, a path to sucess. If you find it works for you, please give me feedback.

I've had a LOT of trouble with people over the years, (last week on this forum, even!) so my journey has been long and hard but teh pivital point ofr me where I forst obtained a true insight into friendship, that cut through the romantic tosh I'd been fed for years, came when I took a job in a town twenty miles up the road, and got a flat nearer in a misguded attempt to get there on time more often...

Up until then I'd been building "friends" nicely in the local motorcyling commuinty. Every weekend for about a year prior to leaving the green service, I'd been biking back every friday night to spend a weekend with these people. We rode togtether, we drank together we fought together, and they very much liked my above average levels of reckless stupidity (also known as "bravery" in some circles) both on and off the Bike, (when you are small and weak, you have to bring something to the table "fighting wise" as a late teenage/early twenties biker, I bought a mix of unpredicatabilty, military training, and a willingness to do what teh average man cannot, and my success was seemingly assured.

Then I started living 20miles up the road, or as I'd sometimes ride it, twenty minutes. I decided to make it worth the ride, and made my palce a very suitable place to be for my friends..

THEY DID NOT COME. Well, I got 'em over once, it was a good evening, but it didn't happen again. It came as a huge shock to 21 year old me, I knew these people were my good friends, (One of them still is, I popped round to his gaff last week) why did this happen to me?

I've come to realise it was because it was because I attempted to changed the "deal". In this case I relocated, but there have been many other times I watched a friendship founder for inexplicable reasons, but it is always the same mechanism at play. This is a big part of why "reliable" people are surrounded by "friends" and people like me are not. 

So frendships are founded on routine and absence of big change.

But, you wordy git (or nazi) how do I get some friends? OR as my G/F laments, "you alwasy have soemoen to talk to, I have no-one"

Well, gentle reader, (and my poor G/F if she ever reads this, god knows she never listens long enough for me to actually answer the question, when she asks it) first you need to make some room in your life for them.  Seriously. Making friends is like growing tomatos or dope, or pretty much any other natural process, you need to set aside time to do the cultivation, particularly, if like me, you like a decent surplus of whatever you grow, to give away or account for natural wastage.

Cultivation is best defined in this instance as "looking after" or "tending" to your friends. Lacking empathy as I do, it's impossible to be Mr Right very often, but it is possibel to be "Mr Trying to do right by people, and occasionally suceeding" the latter approach gets you less friends, but possibly better quality ones.

OO, yeah, let's talk about Q.O.F. (quality of friendship)

Friendship unlike what hollywood would have us believe, is a Spectrum. The quality of the friends life will give you after I've finished this and you have read it (hopefully, I'm doing my best at this end) will depend on the type of person you are, the type of person they are, and the context in which you befriended them. E.G. you get a different quality of friend if you drop a big bag of coke in the table at a hollywood party, than you do if you stop to help some poor sod pushing his motorbike down the road. I did the latter in 1985 (ish) and he's still my friend, although the sort of friend who lives far away and I phone a few times a year, (or even he phones ME).   

So you get friends by interacting with people in a positive manner, and eventually you will find people who like the cut of your jib and start being friendly! I've found that honesty and fair dealing at all times with my friends really helps too. Of course we have "masking", and when your normie friends realise that some of what your are is a "mask" that will often test a new friendship.

How many friends will I get if I take this to heart, and how do I get the good sort, that won't turn on me and break my heart? I hear someone ask (in my head, using my voice, oddly enough :) 

Your experience will vary, depending on how often you expose yourself to other people, and how authentically nice a person you are. Being a nice person, is difficult if you start out being trained hard to be a scumbag like I was, but simply figuring out the right things to do, to make life a little nicer or easier for those who cross my path, trying to limit my boundless capacity for selfishness, and growing my abilty to "take care" of others, (A cat gave me my earliest training in those arts) 

But it's all a waste of time if you cannot KEEP your friends, (unless you are a hollywood party type, they seem to have different expectations) so how do you keep those friendships alive when you finally get 'em going? 

Back to the gardening metaphor it is: YOU keep the friendship going by never "waiting for them to phone first". You figure out what it is that feeds your friendship, and you make sure you keep supplying it! When a friend seems happy to discard you, it really doesn't hurt to make a bit of an effort to pop round unannounced, with a gift of some sort. Because although no one thinks it runs like this, it does. People will only be your friend if they are getting something out of the deal... Whether it's pleasure, help or chocolates or even simple conversation, the price of admission to the friends club is GIVING.

I may come back later, re-read and edit or add to this, but the mental effort I've just expended and lack of food so far consumed, makes me want to stop. I really hope someone finds this anti romantic, engineering or gardening style approach to friendship useful. Heck, I see the signs that I've already possibly planted the seeds of some good friendships here already...

For those of you who are very isolated already or their Autism works in a way that invalidates some or a lot of what I say, the basic difference between romantic ideals of friendship, and the some times hard and calculated work I have to expend to keep my friendships alive won't seem so real  If the methods I use get you a few true friends. And it's rare, but sometimes YOU have to end a friendship for simple self preservation reasons, with the proviso of trying your utmost to be fair and gentle as you do it..

When a friendship ends, (or appears to) being kind and accepting is absolutely the right way to go. I find it gives one an opprtunity (which occasionally works very well, but not always) to resurrect a friendship that has failed once one has identified where you let it fail in the first place, if you haven't burned your boats with unwholesome behaviour. A recently resurrected friendship has proven spectacularly beneficial to me recently, but I didn't resurrect it for the benefits, I resurrected it becuase I like having friends and I believed I had worked out where the failure occured on my part that made the other person end the friendship. It took me ten years but I got my friend back, and I think I treat him better nowadays than I did.

*EDIT* 

I nearly forgot, the basic manual for human relationships, is short, cheap, a bit hard to read and digest in places, wonderfully clear and helpful in others, and it fixed me back in 1980-something, (and incidentally the elssoons I learned permanently ended my then ongoing incel/suicidal activity problem) is called "Games People Play"  by Eric Berne. Probably six quid used on ebay, less if you "wait and pounce". A useful little book, for lost souls such as me, who would like to "improve themselves" quickly and with little effort.. Books: Cheaper than LSD and the effect usually lasts forever.