How to Make a Friend
| September 14, 2016
Photo: Nechama Leibler
There are manuals for just about everything nowadays. You can learn how to play guitar without ever going for a lesson. You can probably become an astronaut by reading a manual. But there’s no manual for finding a friend. And if there were it would probably be really dumb. Making a good friend isn’t something that goes by a book; that’s what Gavriel Farber says.
It’s probably a silly thing for me to want anyway. After all all the guys in my class are friends with each other. We’re not like Ahuva’s class where all the girls are paired off in twos.
But.
Photo: Nechama Leibler
When a guy can’t run after someone with his own two feet sometimes it might be nice to know that when you look up there’s someone you want to hang out with standing there next to you.
And no I’m NOT talking about Gavriel Farber. He doesn’t count.
But I did decide to discuss it with him.
“I’m not looking for a manual on making friends” I told him. “On the contrary I want to learn how to make it happen naturally.”
“You can’t make anything happen naturally” Gavriel said. “That’s like an oxymoron. Which means a contradiction in terms. You need to find someone who has interests in common with you. And then you let things develop naturally.”
Gavriel and I sat down and we made a list of my interests.
It took about five minutes to come up with the first thing on the list.
1) Food
2) Wheelchair skiing
3) Swimming
4) Marathons?
5) ???
6) ???
Come to think of it I wasn’t such a hobby kind of guy. Even the things on my list were things other people did for me I didn’t really do them myself exactly. Except for eating. And eating isn’t a hobby is it? My list made me realize I’d like to do something interesting with my life.
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