The Friend of My Friend is My Friend

So far that phrase has held true almost 100% of the time. The friend of my friend is my friend.

If you are my friend it means I like you and usually that I trust you. Liking someone is fairly easy, but trusting someone is a bigger step. Trust is more important to me.

I honestly think I trust all of my friends. If I don’t trust someone I usually don’t like them much either and there is nowhere to go with me if those two factors don’t exist.

Figuring out if you like someone can take time and trust even longer. But there is a short cut. If you start with someone new, who is already the friend of someone else you like and trust then it’s like having a reference for them as a friend. So you can get to like and trust them twice as fast.

Tonight I am at the beach staying with my friend Jill. Our friends Martha and Bit could not be with us this week. We had so much fun being together last year so that is sad. So Jill invited her very dear friend Annette to visit during my visit. I quickly discovered she is so fun. And it was a short cut to liking her because she is Jill’s great friend and I adore Jill.

I can remember in grammar school when I had a friend who had another good friend who went to a different school. My friend talked about her all the time and I was a little jealous. Then I met her friend and I liked her, and the three of us became friends together.

My original friend said, “You guys really became good friends quickly.” In a kind of snarky way. I remember it like it was yesterday because I told her, “If she’s good enough for you she’s good enough for me.” And then she said, “I just want you both to still like me.” Oh Youth. It takes a long time to realize you can have more than one friend. And having a new one does nothing to diminish the old one.

Friends are like love. There is always the capacity to have more. So sharing your friends with each other is a joy. Thanks Jill, sharing Annette with me. It’s always great to meet a new friend.