Friends with little or nothing in common?

[Yippeekayay]

Yes. Both of my closest friends. I just tolerate them. We go way back in our 20s. We were bonded by idealism, helping each other out, becoming godparents to godsons. Good ole days!

But now, we are spread out in 3 different countries. We are still connected on FB but found we were totally different beings now. One is still extremely idealist while I became a pragmatist and realist. The other from time to time makes light of my being single as he was already married even before I met him. I know he's just jealous and it was his defense mechanism whenever I share/tag him a pic of me and my 30y old friend.

FB makes sense in keeping in touch with them but I would not enjoy any more if we were living in one same town for example. What's keeping me in contact with them is the friendship I had with them when I was younger. We were inseparable then, and I was best man to both their Church weddings.

So at this point, I am happy not having male friends. Female friends, that's a different story.

[Lodestar]

Just read Yippeekayay's post and was going to comment. Same here. I have some friends which go all the way back to kindergarten. We touch base a few times a year for old time's sake and to catch up on news. They are dear to me but we wouldn't spend a lot of time together. They are part of my life.

We have maintained a marriage-long friendship with a couple who married the same year we did. Our spouses worked the same night job and we went to the same college. They had no children, we had two. There were moves to other states. Now we are retired and live in the same town. We have a meal together a couple times a year and provide various kinds of help and support for each other. It's an important relationship but not a particularly close one.

When you've been friends for life there are a lot of changes. Still friends but different paths.

[brightdoglover]

I have to have respect for a person to desire friendship and express it. Don't have to be identical, of course, but I have to feel respectful with differences.

[Travelassie]

Originally Posted by Lodestar

Just read Yippeekayay's post and was going to comment. Same here. I have some friends which go all the way back to kindergarten. We touch base a few times a year for old time's sake and to catch up on news. They are dear to me but we wouldn't spend a lot of time together. They are part of my life.

We have maintained a marriage-long friendship with a couple who married the same year we did. Our spouses worked the same night job and we went to the same college. They had no children, we had two. There were moves to other states. Now we are retired and live in the same town. We have a meal together a couple times a year and provide various kinds of help and support for each other. It's an important relationship but not a particularly close one.

When you've been friends for life there are a lot of changes. Still friends but different paths.

Somewhere long ago I heard it said that true friends over years may not see each other very often, or even communicate that often, but when they get together it's as though they are continuing the same conversation they were having the last time they saw each other. There's a unbroken bond there that supercedes ( for lack of a better description) the differences in their life paths, their varying life and philosophical ( and even political- certainly the case for me and my friends!) perspectives. Even with these differences- which friends who know each other well, and love, recognize as part of each's character- the love and concern for each person, share a genuine interest in how life has gone for each person, sharing the joys and sorrows, is as I see it the commonality that brings these friends together even if they don't see or communicate with each other very often.

[brightdoglover]

I saw an old friend who I'd been out of touch with for some 50 years. Met up in the city when both there and had a great time. Some of the basics never changed (we were very advanced for young people) and now we are in good contact despite the distance of some 2,000 miles (Vermont/Colorado).