Old Friends Are Like Gold?

“Hello! How are you?”

“Who is this?” That was her response to my greeting. I could picture Rapunzel (not her real name)—my friend of several decades—her eyes cold and the corners of her mouth turned down.

You know you are being snubbed when one of your closest and oldest friends pretends not to recognize your voice on the phone. Or she rings you around midnight to demand for an apology for a perceived slight and slams the phone down while you’re still trying to tell her you had nothing to do with the problem. (That really happened to me! I thought the least she could have done to this old friend—and once-upon-a time a dear one too—was to call at a less ungodly hour. Or better still, say to my face that I was a piece of shit so I could say “sama-sama”.)

Met three old friends (from the sixties!) in 2010

Then there is the friend who ignores your text messages and who walks across the street when she realizes that she’d have to bump into you if she stayed on the same side of the road. Or the one who says “hello” only because when she turns her face away from the vegetables at the supermarket and looks up, you’re practically at the end of her nose!



Siblings and their spouses are friends too.

I’ve had my fair share of friends like these. Rather than pujuk them or implore them to remain my friends forever, I let them go—but not without regret.

It’s sad when you are rejected by someone who had been a big part of your life and who doesn’t even want to look at you now that the friendship has soured. To me, it feels like a piece of my heart is torn away. It hurts especially when a friend of several years thinks you are no longer fit to be in her company. It hurts because all the years you were friends you had given her portions of yourself, bits of you that can never be recovered.

Met a brand new friend who is like ‘a drop of golden sun’.

However, we shouldn’t let the fear loneliness make us hold on to friends who clearly don’t want us to be part of their lives. Let them show themselves to the door of your heart and fly away and move on. Time will heal your hurt and other friends will come into your life.

Be thankful for the good friends who bring out the best in you for they’re rare and priceless. The not-so-good ones are many and sometimes it’s less stressful without them cluttering your life. If you have a single friend who takes you in during your darkest hour (when everybody else is suddenly going out of town,) consider yourself fortunate—like me!