Off the cuff: Friends and acquaintances

Years ago I read that we can count ourselves lucky if we have five to 10 good friends in a lifetime. Quickly I totted up in my mind those with whom I could really share my thoughts without being considered weird and I realised that I was safe — and lucky. I had my two handfuls of friends. Life was worth living.

Now, to suddenly hear that the generation that socialises on Facebook and other social networking sites claims to have hundreds of friends threw me off balance — even when it was followed by the snippet that even the most extrovert and sociable among us would not find it possible to actually have more than 150 friends.

One hundred and fifty! How does one keep track of that many names — not to forget their likes and dislikes and other things that form a friendship? Once again, I start doing my mental arithmetic, but try as I might, I cannot go beyond another couple of handfuls of names that make a difference in my life — and I have no desire to.

Maintaining a happy relationship with friends and confidantes gets me into so much trouble that I marvel at those with a wider social circle. How do they manage to keep the threads of affection strong enough to prevent them from snapping?

Among my closest friends are those who quite vocally believe I've overdone the affection and largesse towards my children. They have children older than mine, and therefore think they are qualified to give me some friendly advice from time to time. But when I hear those one-liners about leaving the poor boy alone or letting him learn the hard way, I am shocked into reassessing myself. And predictably, I question not what I've done with that pampered child but what I'm doing with this friend. The subject of parenting — something that the two parents generally spend the better part of three decades disagreeing on — is also, naturally, one that raises the hackles of any indulgent mom. It is obviously too late to change yourself and how you deal with the child (now adult) but it is never too late to change your list of friends — or so you think. Surely, knowing you and how involved you've been with active smothering, your friends should have held their silence, shouldn't they?

And then there are friends with whom you have to think before you speak, even walk on eggshells most of the time. There's one or more who takes umbrage at the very slightest of slights, who insists on being ‘politically correct' at all times, who follows all the ‘rules' of civilised society (whatever they are) and expects you to, too.

Among those two handfuls, you also have at least one who without fail will say the wrong thing at the wrong time in the middle of a crowded room. You like that friend, you enjoy her directness at all other times, but in the middle of that crowded room?

The time and effort you expend in ironing out the misunderstandings that arise from the blunders all around makes you wonder whether friends aren't more trying than enemies. After all, enemies are so easy to handle — you don't waste a moment's thought on them. But friends — oh, you have to think and think again because you care. No such dilemma with enemies, is there?

Then, out of the blue, you get that thoughtful gesture, the helping hand, that direct entry into your affections — and you know that it's those secret corners of our hearts that are responsible for our friends — that feeds the desire to pander to them and not let them go. They do it for us too, don't they?

(Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.)