Welcome to Gaia! ::

Cause I do intend to make this MY forum, biatches. In other words, it shall be my official hangout, not that it be mine, yo.

If I am alone in this, so be it. I'll have extended discussions with myself, as I've done so successfully in the past.

Thus, I commence my career of "spamming" this forum, yo.

Since this is a discussion forum, this means that every topic should have a discussion, right? Well then.

It would seem that popularity is an important thing in our lives. But really, just how important is it? Surely we all need friends, and a SO for the most part of us. But seriously, do we really need to have 100 best friends, to know everyone in a building of 3000 frequenters, and so and so? Just how important is it?

Well I was never one of the popular kids in school. But that was fine with me cause I didn't need to be popular. As long as I had 1 real friend that's all that I needed. 1 person who understood me and that I could laugh and cry with.

I'm lucky to have more than one friend, and I have to say, the more the merrier. But I'm not going to go out of my way to make sure 3000 people like me. I don't really care.

Popularity means nothing to me if all my 'friends' are just gonna talk behind my back and backstab me. I'd rather be surrounded by real friends, people I can trust 3nodding

Well, back when I had my 1 best friend in the whole world. Her family moved away to Ottawa and she had to go along with them. It was really tough but we made it through. We're still best friends even now and nothing with change that. We still talk to each other on MSN all the time, talk on the phone once and a while and also visit each other once of twice a year. To me it just proved how special our friendship actually is. That we stayed together through think and thin.

When she moved away also I was able to make more friends. Of course non of them would replace my best friend but I do consider them great friends.

Indeed, yet, there could become a point where you'd know too many people, don'tcha agree? When you'd be going in the corridors of your university or school, and have to stop every 5 steps to wave to someone, every 10 to talk to someone, every 15 to catch up over something, every 20 to hug someone, every 25 to apologize to someone you didn't get a chance to wave at, every...

Well, I believe they call it too much of a good thing. But just how much is too much? Certainly not knowing 20 people, or otherwise we'd all be ********. 200? 2000? 20%? Why am I asking this? heh

You seem to go by the approach of "ram things till they work", really. Kind of a chemical reaction, where you try to have the most molecules available in order to create the most amounts of bonds. Yet you invoke quality at the same time. Of course, everyone wants to have a perfect bond with someone, either BFF/BF/GF or so, yet.. is it really such a way to act?

Seems to me like you're going "Does this work? No? Next." "This? No. Next." Of course, I'm simplifying quite a bit, but some would argue that the best way would be to look at even a good possibility and elaborate on it. Work on it. Of course, if the other person is unwilling, it doesn't amount to much, such just like a relationship. We can all think of an aquaintance who that if we tried just a bit, we know it would make a good friend. So then, is it best to just try the most possible until one comes easily and then work on that one? Or see ones that interest us in the tiniest bit and do a bit of extra effort in order to get the relationship to flourish, maybe even beyond friends if of the preferred sex?

If you try your method (as I have downsized it to something simpler: "Does it (...)" part), some people could get very devastated, to be honest. "Oh, s/he doesn't talk to me no more, probably doesn't even find me interesting at all.. Woe's my self-esteem!"

Though of course, I'm assuming, as I very well know, that you mean that you can't take what little one has and make it incredibly big if there are no new... ressources. Then again, as I've said, there's always the possibility of those aquaintances who we THINK dislike us, but y'never know... maybe they don't talk to us for the reason that we don't talk to them.

Then again, there are those fools who are just fools, but you can't really account for them in any.. analysis.




Ah, I must say, that's an excellent display of even very good friendship. It's what many yearn for, either in the form, again, of BFF/BF/GF. It's very hard indeed to find someone that you not only care for deeply, but that that person also cares and trusts you. To be honest, perhaps a bit subjectively, a pure friendship like that is most often seen in f/female. Maybe it's because of the male stereotype of not being able to display emotions, and that you have to act tough and manly at all times, or perhaps just because of true apathy. Of that, I don't know for sure.

What I do know, though, is that too often, we misplace our trust in others, and at other times we don't place ENOUGH trust. That can be very tricky, as is evident. It can utterly destroy possible friendships, or lead to disastrous consequences, such as peer pressure forcing the start of drugs or something. We can become so blind to the truth, that whatever the other person says, we take for granted. Though, that can be seen as being a bit submissive, I find. Of course, I'm not assuming either side in your case, I'm just going a bit off trail on the causes of lost friendships..

So then, it comes down to quite a few things, really. How a person acts can attract others differently. Some will just MAKE others come to them almost magically, while other poor unfortunates must work their way up the social, or perhaps friendship ladder until they find a... comfort zone, I suppose. But then we see that we can be faced with many a tough decision, such as losing a friendship because of distance, the person changing themselves, etc...

That's the problem ain't it. People think so highly of popularity they base their whole way of life on it (high school ish). In the manner that there are literal tiers in the students in such a sense that if you're a lower tier, you cannot date someone who's a tier up or lower. Gets pretty sad when a cute lil' girl has her heart set on a popular boy and would do anything to be with him, yet he won't even acknowledge her existence, even if he's a good person. You're right indeed. It's best not to dwelve too much on popularity, or it begins to gnaw at us...

Ah, good ol' aquaintances. There's always extremes, ain't there? If you're too "popular" you have 'friends' as you so discribe them, yet if you're not you can't even make a few good friends, you can't find yourself a best friend and or boy or girlfriend.

In an unrelated note, I didn't reply to this for almost 2 months. Go lazyness.

i was never a popular kid at school...i was actually the total opposite of that.
but as long as i had one good friend who i could share anything with i would be ok. luckily i had 2 at the time, but with time i had some more, and now i have lots of them. all very close friends that i love and cherish so much.
i wouldn't say i am popular, more like lucky.
but really, if i had the chance to be popular..would i be? No....i have no interest in such a thing. it's too much of a hassle. being popular at least from what i got from it....you have to care what every single person thinks of you...how you are seen in a crowd of people. be what people want you to be, dress a certain way, walk a certain way, look a certain way.....really, i rather just freak out and flail around. it's so much funner that way.