Section 14 Group 4

Today we spoke about Nehemas' outlook on friendship. Our group agreed that friendships are very vital to our existence. Naturally, we hold a very large attachment to the relationships that we have with people around us. But, when those relationships reach a certain level of internal significance, they transcend into something different. Something heavier.

When friendships are terminated, we all agreed that the “it's not you it's me” / “don't take this personal” are all just ways to avoid the sincerity of the situation, relationships are terminated based on the dissatisfaction of one of the members of the relationship.

We all feel like social networking has turned friendships into just flatlined “interactions”.

Furthermore, we discussed how interactions with people through other means than direct conversation, can cause us not to catch the authenticity of a conversation. When just communicating through text, either cellular or social networking, we lack the ability of body language, vocal inflection, etc. etc., and these things are vital in understanding one's personal message.

We agreed that friendships are vital, given that humans strive for acceptance, our interactions with friends build our character.

But we came to a question, where do our friendships develop into an overall change of character?

Because of how influenced we are by our social groups.

And where does it become wrong?

Is it wrong?

We discussed that conformity is inevitable, and that it's okay, as long as we do keep our perception of own identity.

We discussed the expectations that people set to friendships, and that the timespan of friendships can not really be determined. Therefore, it is more plausible to “go with the flow”.

“Friendships are like cotton t-shirts, wash them with hot water, and they'll shrink.” - Jacob.