Best Friends in Time or Experience?

     Friendship is a part of life that seems to help us be guided through the daily struggles and the common successes we may experience. As humans, we tend to befriend many people, leaving a very vague meaning to what really makes up "true friendship". There are those few that we encounter through our lives that seem to really have a certain impact on us. Now this could be negative or positive, but I definitely believe that in the end of the day there is a reason.
    Although many find it hard to believe that there is reason to everything we do in life, I can definitely say that through what I have personally experienced, friendships have always seemed to have a reason, and usually it is one that teaches a certain lesson. People we meet are like drifters in the ocean: One minute we see them, floating by on the surface, and at any moment may be gone and have drifted out of sight. Some of these drifters may challenge us with obstacles and cause us to have to think of different ways to handle a situation and learn from the experience. Others, could actually be there to help us through whatever needs to be done, and once the lesson has been learned, we may choose to toss them back to let them drift off or we may allow them to become part of the select few that remain with us forever.
   This is where the ideology of a best friend comes in. Like I mentioned before, we have MANY ecounters with people throughout our lives, and many of the people we meet are just there for a short period of time. There are others, a very select few others, who we have so much to learn from and so much to enjoy about that we tend to create a special bond with them. I have heard from people, movies, and books that "best friends" develop through a bond that needs to be fermented and grown throughout several years. I do not necesarily agree with this statement. It is true that friends who have been with you for a long time, may personally have experienced your history and may understand what you have been through because they saw you go throught it, but there are also those who went through life, unknowing of your existence, and yet still seemed to somehow experience and grow in an almost parallel if not intersecting manner with you. The fact of the matter is that people do change, and when we meet these people, who we have grow similarly to, it could be that we have met them right as we were meant to.
    The arguement of fate and destiny is a whole other topic that can be discussed for ages, but it is has a very appropriate application when it comes to friendships, especially best friendships. As one of my friends once said, "We always talk about soulmates in love but what about a 'friend soulmate'?". Personally, I think she is completely right here. We dont realize that the friendships we gain throughout our lives are equally as important as the the romantic relationships. I have had great friends, mediocre friends, and even horrible friends, but in the end of they day they all had an impact on the person I am today and what I have learned over the last 19 years of my existence. I believe that we are meant to meet certain people, and it could be at any point in our lives, but when we do meet them we will know that there is that special bond that can almost never be broken and is never really supposed to be broken. Just because we meet someone at the age of 20, doesn't alienate them from the last 20 years of our lives... it just gives them more to learn. When we meet our "friend soulmates", the case will most likely be that even though you may have had different experiences with different people, it is those experiences that made you so similar and brought you to each other in the end of the day.
     As people we tend to give way to much credit to the amount TIME we have known someone and instead neglect the amount of OURSELVES we have truly invested into our closest friends. It may be hard to believe, but until you have met these "friend soulmates", you may not actually understand how you could have so much faith in another individual even by just knowing them for a short period of time. Just like romantic love is meant to come to us and will come to us, true friendship is one that requires patience and anticipation, since, when it is found, it can be one of the most rewarding and helpful pleasures we experience throughout our lives.