Changing jobs, moving to a new
country, and even starting a new hobby take you to new circles of people. At
the same time, it gets you thinking about your old circles, and sort of
reassess your relationship with the people whom you might have taken for
granted for a long time or vice versa. While it is common for the “in touch”
level to differ based on physical and time proximity, keeping a weak or
strong tie should be irrelevant of these tangible aspects, in my opinion.
This triggered me to think of the idea
of “convenience friends”; people who hangout with you – or you hang out with - because
you happen to be in the right place at the right time for them and once the
circumstances change you are no longer friends or to be more accurate you haven’t
been in the first place!
While there’s nothing really wrong
with that, it doesn’t work for everyone, and while you don’t have to sign a
friendship pact with those you cross paths with there need to be some shared
understanding or matched expectations. Simply because some people make friends
for life and whenever they have to part and end up not meeting or even talking
for months, there remains a deep level of “ود” that connects hearts oceans
apart!
I thought I’m the first one to coin
the term “convenience friends” but when I Googled I found loads of materials on
the topic, though they mostly take one angle, one that shows one party as
guilty and the other as a victim. But let’s start with the basics:
According to
the Urban dictionary, a convenience
friend is “A person who is only around when it is easy and convenient
for them. They are the people who, if not placed around us, (ex. dorm rooms),
all the time, they wouldn't really be friends. They are usually used to do
things for you, if you need a ride to and from school, etc. They are basically
friends who need you around when they need a favor, or when they are just so
bored out of their minds that they would rather hang out with you than sit
around all day, but they'd never put you first.”
On the other hand, some talk about how
one person who is taking others as convenience friends may not be doing it
intentionally but just as a result of being too busy (and on that matter being
too self-centered!). Others bring the interesting perspective of how someone
taking you as a convenience friend may indeed be a convenience friend to
another in some sort of normal loop. While most of the first Google page search
results talks mainly about materialistic things, like more tangible favours,
the time and emotions invested in such relationships are more valuable. Eventually,
both sides will have their own definitions and stories, and while one person
might feel like a convenience friend the other might see him/her as “too
attached”.
The real risk of this phenomenon is
that some people spend their whole lives mainly surrounded by convenience
friends, and thus when they grow old and naturally are less able to do “favours”
to others, they end up being very lonely.
So I guess this is an invitation for
those who tend to honour human relationships significantly more than others, to
manage their expectations, and do “reality checks” from time to time to assess
the kind of friendship they are involved in and act accordingly. It is not
healthy to hold the place of a victim and investing too much time and emotions
in such relationships may lead you to miss out on more genuine potential
friendships out there.
This is also an invitation to those on
the other end of the spectrum to appreciate and honour human relationships more
and to try being more self-aware of where they stand from those around them and
where they place them in return.
I’ll end up with a part from a poem a
friend of mine has recently shared:
ويسألونك عن الحب
قل هو تمام المعرفة
وكمال الوصال
حتى وان غاب عن الانظار
قل هو تمام المعرفة
وكمال الوصال
حتى وان غاب عن الانظار
