Old Friends

It's nice to have old friends, it means that you were personally able to maintain a friendship (which says something about you) and it means the person(s) that is your old friend is worth be-befriending over a long period of time, which says something about them.

Friendship is one of those misused concepts in this day and age I believe though. I'm told I'm not popular enough as I have 1/10th the 'friends' on Facebook as my kids. So be it. I'm pretty comfortable with that as in reality I don't have 400-5000 'friends' - people I'd be happy to share an evening or weekend with gladly, enjoying their company, their news and the stories of what's going on with them. I think friends should be measured against a higher standard, and acquaintance should rise in prominence as a concept and a word. Acquinatncebook doesn't have much of a ring to it though.

Friends don't count money - as in who owes who for whatever as it all comes out in the wash over time. Friends do make a point of trying to participate in significant events in each others lives - both on the invitation front (as in we'd like them to be there) and a genuine desire to participate too. Friends are preferred over extended family in terms of company often - after all, you picked your friends. (I'm talking beyond immediate nuclear family connections)

Real friendship once developed is very hard to destroy. I've seen that firsthand, and despite years of hardship, friendship has survived as there was tremendous investment on both parts initially.

So, I'd like to move that we create a new designation for the status of the lifelong, strong friendship. (BTW - I don't like the term "best" as in best friend as it makes a relative judgment on friend vs friend, and in that sense misses the point completely.) My new term blends family and friends as that's as close as I can get to the core value concept I think. Two choices would be Framily or Famiend. I prefer the latter but it sound too much like famine I think, and there's a bad joke waiting to happen there.

So - for the sake of one or three people in your live that are your lifelong "framily", who is with me ? I'm guessing we can make this stick with some social networking, mass engagement style. And if you check, I bet Framilybook is an available domain name.