Do you ever take a step back and think about how at some point in your life all your friends were strangers to you? How if you hadn’t gone to that bar on a Saturday night, or didn’t tap on that random girl’s shoulder to ask about the time, maybe you wouldn’t have found people you now consider your chosen family?
It is hard to distinguish whether meeting a person is a coincidence or pure fate. They say the universe presents you the people you need at certain points in your life and it is your choice to put them in your life or not. But how is that choice made? Many people, myself included, compare making a new friend to falling in love; there is the initial excitement factor that makes you want to get to know the person, spend time with them and become part of their life and when that fades away, a feeling of love and connection remains. On the other hand, there are times where there seems to be no connection at first, but as time goes by you realize you have a lot of things in common with a person you previously didn’t like.

The transition from strangers to acquaintances to friends is the phase where people start to bond with each interaction. As time goes by and friends get closer, the connection deepens and they start playing a detrimental role in people’s daily life and mental health. With friends, you share mutual interests and values, quality time, as well as advice and support. They listen, help and understand when times get tough, but are also there for the happy moments. Most of the time and especially as people grow older, friends become as important as family, if not more. That is why friendships are such a special bond and they have been scientifically linked to better health and overall well-being.
If you think about it, friends are just strangers who have decided that they will be in each other’s lives and support each other without the element of romance or family/blood bond that exists in the rest of relationships. However, because of the effort and time put into friendships, a lot of the times romantic feelings arise and the relationship takes another direction, although that is obviously not always the case. Friendships are so necessary that they need to be the basis of every relationship. For example, romantic relationships work better if the couple considers each other a friend as well as a partner, which is also true for siblings, and so on.
But what is it that makes us want to pursue a friendship and turn that random meeting moment to a permanent relationship? The main feelings when meeting someone new are often excitement and admiration. The communication and general vibes of the first few interactions catch our interest and make us want to get to know the other person on a deeper level -or not, respectively-. More often than not people realize they share some similarities, which is refreshing and exciting and can become a foundation on which a friendship can be built. Spending time together and sharing daily life moments creates a comfortable space, where eventually people can open up and express their concerns, thoughts and feelings and ask for advice, thus bonding even further. What is also very important is making shared memories and experiencing new things together.
Chance turns into permanence when people realize that they can count on the person they consider their friend. When they become the person they want to call when an inconvenience happens, when they want to share a victory or a loss. Support, both emotional and physical, is very important for a bond to deepen and for a relationship to work. Knowing your friends are there for you just as you are for them makes for a sense of safety and stability which is necessary. Support should be mutual and not only from one person to the other because that creates a different dynamic and a co-dependent relationship, which is not healthy or pure. Psychologists say that if a friendship lasts more than 7 years, it will most likely last a lifetime, since you change and evolve together.

Of course, being someone’s friend, just like every relationship, is not a walk in the park; it requires effort and despite the many benefits it also has difficulties. It is natural for arguments and conflicts to arise and if they result in a ‘friendship breakup’, it hurts as much as a breakup from a romantic partner, if not more. Friends a lot of the time reflect the person we are at the time we meet them and as people change and evolve over time so do their relationships; they can either move forward together or the change causes a clash and the relationship comes to an end. It is important to understand that not all friends will stay forever; maybe they were a small part of the ride and that sometimes is a hard pill to swallow.
There is a great debate between fate and chance and truth is, there is no definite answer. What seems to play a big role is psychology and personal outlook. When people see everyday events as signs connected to each other pointing to a certain result, that result is more likely to happen because their actions follow a connect-the-dots path, but it is hard to tell if that is pre- or self-determined. Whether you call it self-fulfilling prophecy, destiny, the universe or anything else, sometimes some things are just too random to be considered pure chance.
As we can see, the possibilities of meeting someone by chance are already very slim, but becoming a friend with no effort are none. Maybe that is why having good friends is so special; because they choose you and you choose them every single day. As people get older, maybe they feel that they have already made their friends, but there is always room for a new connection that might turn into a life-long friendship. Every experience is better when shared and hard times are easier when talked about.
Written by Nefeli Papanastasopoulou