Of friendships and taking two hands to clap

I've been thinking a lot about my friendships the past week, mainly because it struck me that without warning, they may be gone someday, regardless of whether I hold them close to my heart or not. The separations may not actually be (directly) due to my own shortcomings to begin with – after all, it takes two hands to clap, so they're also at the mercy of the other party's expectations and priorities. And it is precisely because relationships are cooperative in nature that a lot of us emphasise on values such as commitment, understanding and compromise when it comes to maintaining them. Yet no matter how aware I am of this, I'm afraid that I'm always growing comfortable too quickly, and always taking for granted the situation that brought the two of us together as good friends, as if it's going to be permanent, and as if we're not going to be whisked away to completely different places when we least expect it.

I think about the good times I've had with the people whom I currently keep in close contact with, and I wonder how we will change with the passage of time. For some, I've already been in their lives for seven years and counting, and it's for these friendships that I'm most worried – are we going to realise, a few years after life leads us to our respective greener pastures, that we've never really understood each other and that our personalities actually clash in ways we've never imagined before? It's indisputable that I'll definitely put in the effort to preserve these relationships – they're simply way too precious for me to just let them go like they're nothing. What I'm not sure of is whether they'll do the same, and it's not that I don't have faith in them – it actually amazes me sometimes how well we can act as pillars of support for one another – but simply because I can't say for sure.

Then there's the group of them who sincerely clock hours for all the 'we really need to meet up soon's and the 'it's been long, why don't we catch up again sometime?'s, in an effort to deal with the aftermath of having been physically separated. Yet I can't help but feel that as of late, it's increasingly become a case of applauding intentions and accepting that we've been separated by too much time. It makes me profoundly ambivalent, how there's no longer common ground to tie us together, and this stems from a combination of boredom over how there's nothing special to share or listen to anymore, happiness over how we're still trying to make things work despite all that's changed, and uncertainty over whether we'll meet again in the near future. It feels kind of funny, really, like volunteering to walk a tightrope, or willing oneself to hang freely off a cliff. The option to give up and say 'no' is always there, yet we've continued holding on to one another, maybe because there's always a remote possibility that someday, the lines that we are will once again converge.

I've also been grappling with yet another type of problem in my friendships lately: the friendship of unequal expectations, i.e. to think that everything about the friendship has been sailing smoothly, when in fact it hasn't for the other party. And I have to say that it's really eye-opening, how pride can get in the way of solving such problems. Also, I guess that through this experience, I've gained some much-needed insight into how different people perceive their relationships, though I'm definitely not obliged to agree with them of course. It really takes situations like these to once again remind me that life, in all its aspects, is as dynamic as ever. You're dealt with the cards, but it doesn't mean that you win the game. Nevertheless, don't bend yourself to accommodate others if it's not something that you want for yourself as well.

In sum, I thought I've understood enough about relationships to at least keep them... serviceable, if not healthy. Turns out that with this period where I've grown rather detached from the outside world due to NS commitments, it's once again become an area of concern for myself. I guess what's most important for me right now is to evaluate all my existing friendships, and to be reciprocative and proactive when I need to be...