Developing meaningful relationships

[Avian]

Hello, fellow personal developers!!!

I wanted to start a new thread on the topic of friendship, which I think many of us agree is a crucial one. It is interesting to see, how with the emergence of social networking sites (MySpace, etc) people make more and more online friends and less real ones.
From a personla perspective, I can definitly relate. I have a lot of online friends and none real-life friends. Of course, this is the point where we have to define our therms - I personally define friend as a person who deeply cares about you and is willig to go out of their way for your sake. Other people that i am just friendly with I deine as aquaintances. Personally, I have a lot of aquantances, but none real friends. In my opinion, alot of people can relate. Some are naturally shy and have trouble meeting new people. Others (like me) have n problem meeting new people, but are just having trouble developing a great friendship relationship. So, I guess my question is - How can one forge meaningful friendships?

Thanks for reading.
Avian

[peter]

Originally Posted by Avian

How can one forge meaningful friendships?

Invest! Give something to the relationship... give a piece of the best part of yourself... help the friends you have... lend a hand when they need it, even if they don't ask... if you can help them... at least offer to help...

meaningful friendship is a two way connection... you must be a good friend first... and then, only then expect to reap the benefits...

So do something for them without expecting anything in return, just as a friend would do.

[Kristina]

I've always been a person with lots of aquaintances and no true friends... but that all changed fairly recently. Here's what happened...

I moved cities, moving away from my family who I used to depend on for a lot of things. I was alone in a new city, and I met lots of acquaintances through my normal activities (sports, work, etc.), and I worked on being independent.
Needless to say, I wasn't 100% capable of dealing with everything that came up... (like who was going to boost my car when I forgot to plug it in, and who was going to water my plants when I was away...)

So I resolved to ask some of the acquaintances that I got along best with to help me out. Well they didn't refuse, and in fact asked me for similar favours in return... from there it escalated to some pretty close friendships.

Peter was bang on when he said give with out expecting anything in return, and you can also ask for help too... just let them know that you'll be happy to return the favour.
Kristina

[Avian]

Going to what Peter said, I would have to say that I think that this should be pretty self-evident. Most of the time, when I invest in friendships I find that the other person is almost always reaping the benefits and end up just using me.
I guess I can use Kristina's advise too. A little change in my routine might do me good.

[Jill]

Don't forget that your online friends can also be your best friends!

Most of my best friends are those that I originally met online. I have since met them in person, and that's even better to have the best of both worlds!

[Dating Specialist]

To forge and deepen a friendship also needs some proactivitiy in us to make that happen.

If we always wait to be asked out, then slowly our friends may just exclude us from the circle. I am pretty guilty of this myself due to my work.

So, sometimes take the initiative and ask them out for coffee or lunch or something.

As what Kristina says, when we need help we just ask. Ask and it shall be given. That's what friends are for - we help each other out and through that we develop further.

[Michael Chui]

I define friendship to be the reciprocated relationship between two people who love one another. This statement is deceptively simple, but I have spent many years struggling to make it meaningful to me. There are two links: a definition of friendship (short) and a definition of love (long). Note that the term "love" does not refer to romance, except incidentally.

So the answer to your question, mystifying as it may seem, is to love others, and to love yourself, so that others are willing to love you. Embedded into this is a lot of subtext and complexity that I've tried my best to explain, but suspect I have a long way to go.