ON FRIENDSHIP (a female point of view)

“Para el argentino, la amistad es una pasión y la policía una mafia”

 Jorge Luis Borges

 

Many times in my many conversations with foreigners they referred to a friend who afterwards turned out to be someone they have recently met and whom they didn´t actually know. That made me wonder if the word “friend”, whose meaning seems pretty obvious at first sight, is used in the same way everywhere. I concluded that it isn´t.

 

Therefore, before saying anything about friendship between men and women it becomes necessary to suit the word “amigo” to its meaning in our culture.

 

What do we mean when we talk about a friend? 

 

After some enquiries I have got to the following list:

 

You consider someone as a friend when:

 

1- you know every detail of them, especially their defects.

2- you have had at least one argument with them and you still love them.

3- you have shared many experiences, especially embarrassing or bad ones.

4- you trust them.

5- you have something in common.

 

also when

 

6- you feel like meeting them with no excuse in any moment and context.

7- you talk to them whenever something good or bad happens (no matter if it is embarrassing to tell).

 

Long distance friends or friends with children or a partner may modify 6 and 7 but abscence of 1 to 5 may change the way one referres to that relationship.

Those different names are:

 

- Un conocido: An aquaintance is someone you meet with some frequency due to some external causes but you are not especially fond of although you have a cordial treatment.

 

- Un amigo de: “A friend from…” is someone you also meet frequently, normally because you share some common activity (dancing, university, etc.). You feel afection for them but you don´t meet outside that activity neither you meet the two of you alone.

 

- Alguien que conocí: “Someone I met…” is someone you haven´t met enough times to know eachother but you felt that you would like to.

 

Any of them is usually formed in the frame of activities common to a group that forces people to meet regularly but it may turn into something more intense as it becomes more separate from the group.

 

No matter whether we talk about friendship between men and women or not, friendship itself is a serious matter. Porteños don´t use the word “amigo” lightly. Rather they categorize relationships in many accurate ways and those ways change as the requirements are being matched up.

 

Bonds between people arise in the social field, they fix with the time but become narrower only in the intimacy.

 

If you are trying to make some local friends (in porteños´ terms), start with the first step: look for some social and regular activity of you interest, be open with your feelings, be curious about others and finally, wait, time will do its work. 

HOWEVER…

…from time to time, life just puts you in the right place, at the right time, with the right person and magic happens.