Types of Friends

I thought I like Phillip's website, but after reading his entries on "types of friends", I decided that we experienced friends in different way...

• Type-1 friends - These are your closest friends in life. To determine whether someone is a Type-1 friend, think about whether you would have a great time eating dinner together with him/her alone on a semi-regular basis and chatting one-on-one for at least 2 hours or even longer. Notice that to be Type-1 friends with somebody, you don't need to be their soul-mate, BFF (best friends forever!), or a childhood friend who goes way back ... there just needs to be some compatibility and rapport where both people enjoy each other's company and can share genuine laughs (I don't mean the occasional humorous 'hehe', I mean true LOLs, where you're literally laughing out so loud that it hurts). Being with your Type-1 friends can be both fun and emotionally fulfilling, and can make you feel happy to be alive. I haven't done any experiments, but I hypothesize that most people (no matter how sociable) have no more than four Type-1 friends.

This is true for too many people I had during my first year at EC. Just about so many people in my hall, those I met during orientations, and other occasions meet this criteria. I constantly held conversation with folks for more than 3 hours. The longest one I held is about 7-8 hours, though not the most enjoyable I had! But I definitely had more than 3 hour conversations than once every week... it always pain me whenever I think about these people, of how far away I am, right now, away from them... both in space and in time I feel so many times that I am forever separated from them.

I think the biggest reason that I lost them is that I never trusted anyone ... until I fell very much in love with the people when I was a frosh. I never experienced what it is like to have a family, to have someone you don't have to pretend to be happy or strong in front of, and most important, of trust, until my stay at EC.

There's someone important I met. I think he's quite sharp - I didn't know how he could have known, why I am currently so far from a future I planned before I gone to mit, during the short six days at Leadershape. At any rate, he stated explicitly what I had suspected all along of why, what I did was so suicidal, yet I could feel nothing - (that's what I am mad most about myself, I don't even feel regret or remorse about the loves I lost) - , basically boils down to TRUST.