Friday, May 15, 2009

Friday Five: "Friends" Edition

From the RevGalBlogPals' Friday Five post:

Ever since I found out I could be the hostess for the third Friday Five of each month, I have not been able to get the thought of friends out of my mind. Being an only child (all growed up) who moved around a lot in my lifetime, friends have always been very important to me. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "The way to have a friend is to be a friend."

So today let's write about the different kinds of friends we have, like childhood friends, lost friends, tennis friends, work friends, and the list goes on. List 5 different types of friends you have had in your life and what they were/are like.

As a bonus, put a link to a new (to you) blogging friend and introduce us!


1. School friends. Sadly, I've lost contact with nearly all my college friends, but I do maintain contact with some of my high school pals, either running into them here in greater Outer Podunk or through the virtual-reunion magic of Facebook. I have gone to one high school reunion, which was quite interesting because almost none of my old posse were present -- I wound up socializing with people who weren't in my inner circle back in the day. And I had fun with them.

If I could meet up with my college friends, I'd definitely want them to be the gang from Martin Luther Chapel and University Lutheran Church. Good times.

2. Church friends. This is a pretty diverse group encompassing everyone from li'l kids to our 90-year-old church matriarch to the folks from my LMTP program. Because our faith is very often our only commonality, this is the most challenging bunch of peeps in my interconnecting circles of friends.

3. Blog friends. I've certainly made some terrific friends through this medium. (A fact that I wish would spur my creative impulses here.) I'm always in awe of the writing ability and the insight of my blogfriends; it keeps me humble, as well as connected.

4. Animal friends. I can't forget my animal buddies, past and present. Actually, as I type, Mollie the cat is curled up above my head on the top of the sofa, while Gertie -- who just lost her tennis ball -- is standing at her toy box, looking up at me as if to say, "Well...are you going to help me find it?"

5. Facebook friends. This is an interesting intersect of the above groups (well...with the exception of my animal friends, who so far haven't friended me on Facebook, although Gertie is regularly read reports of other friends' pets).

I haven't been blog-surfing lately, so for my bonus points I'll add a new category of friend: The marketplace friend. We tend to make friends -- not social friends, but recognize/smile/wave friends -- with a lot of people selling goods and services around here: Yard Guys, Lamb Lady, Angie at the Coop, Mrs. Mast and Mrs. Gingerich in the Amish community, the Brass Cafe owner and head chef, Tony of Tony's Tacos...I could go on and on. We're loyal customers when businesspeople do a good job for us; we're friendly; we give affirmation and occasionally constructive criticism. We truly enjoy interacting with these people.

6 comments:

Jan said...

I like the idea of marketplace friends. That's true about those people we see frequently, often more than "friends." Sad to say, my husband and I went to our 40th high school reunion last year--and none of our earlier friends attended. It was disappointing.

Auntie Knickers said...

Great play! By the way, my dog Rusty thinks that barking at the tennis ball that is stuck under the radiator will make it come out. And he's right -- it makes us old folks get down on our hands and knees to retrieve it.

Diane M. Roth said...

i actually like the marketplace friend category. I'm having trouble typing for very long, but I'd love to tell about Marv and Dawn and Homestead Pickin' Parlor. Also Augie from the grocery store, although he's also a church friend.

LoieJ said...

I really like that last category of friends. You sound like you have a more diverse group of business friends than I do because of the food, but since I live in a tiny town and mostly shop here, I appreciate the small town merchants and I'm sure that they at least appreciate my wallet. Only 620 people officially in this little burg. But we get by because of "The Lake" nearby. Just barely getting by this year, it looks like.

Unknown said...

Is Gertie on Dogbook?

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of marketplace friends. As a part-time grocery store cashier, I see quite a few of the same people week in, week out, and we get to talking as i process their orders. And although I visit much less frequently than I used to, there's the Dimples Donuts shop ladies.