A New-Found Friend and A Lesson on Friendship
Posted on Friday, 1 August 2014
A
New-Found Friend
And A
Lesson On Friendship
By Apolinario Villalobos
About six months ago, I was surprised to
find a message in my email from a guy whose username was not familiar to me. It
came from a viewer who happened to come across my posts in the internet. The
message was short, just a simple encouragement, adding that he discovered my
posts while browsing the web using a certain tag. After I acknowledged his first message and
thanked him for the encouragement, he regularly sent me emails from then on,
with unsolicited advices, some containing pointers on how to reach out to other
viewers.
He liked my poems about the people I met
and my frank dissertations on politics. He said, he was based in Canada and
also into poetry writing, and in fact, has been planning to have his third
collection published as an e-book. I found out, too, that he used to work with
the Ministry of Human Settlement during the Marcos administration, but gave me
assurance that my calling the late President a dictator was alright. In fact,
in his old age, he thought that the dictator’s government was far better than
the corruption-riddled republic we have now, reason why he chose to retire in
Canada.
Some of his short messages with unsolicited
advices were about viewers of posts in general, based on his experience as a
struggling blogger on facebook. He told me to prepare myself for some nasty
comments on my posts. I told him that so far I received none. He shared his
discouraging experience about his friends who did not support him… but instead,
would just “peek” to check how far he had gone in gaining popularity which was
shown in “likes” and “shares” of his posts.
Later, he posted short poems as captions of
the photos. Much later, he tried posting reviews on movies and books which
gained viewers, too, but only few from among those whom he really expected. At
the time, he opened other sites for his works which gained viewers in no time,
especially, the photos captioned with poems. The encouraging result, made him
try to post long dissertations which also gained viewers.
I have read in a book on psychology what my
friend told me. I thought he hit the nail on the head. He got a point in a way,
because according to what I read, as applied in his case, if his friends are “real” friends, they could have somehow helped
him, by sending a personal message with their suggestion or honest comment, be
they negative or not. These comments could have helped him know if he was doing
the right thing or not. Most importantly, the comments could have enhanced what
had been shared by him. On the other hand, based on my own experience, the real
intention of commenting viewers can be sensed in “how” they state opinions. In
more open sites, bashers have a grand time in ridiculing blogs by posting even
nonsensical comments. Fortunately, the facebook is a tamer site as viewers are
“friends”.
I told my friend, that I did not expect
many viewers in facebook, and that all I wanted was just to express myself, and
in fact, been fortunate to have appreciative viewers. This time, I shared with
him what I realized that some viewers are just such – viewers, not readers, so
that long discourses are not for them, as they just expect to view “photos” or
framed anecdotes to have a semblance of “photos”, aside from of course, real
photos. I joked that perhaps, his friends had no patience in reading long
“discourses” or that poems are not just for them.
It’s a good thing that I met my new-found friend
because with his persuasion, I opened the other sites for my blogs and found
out that there are also other people – strangers, who appreciate my works. He
is the kind of a friend who, though newly-found, showed concern and support. He
is another lesson on friendship. Despite his being a stranger, he unselfishly
shared his experiences with me, sensing that I am serious in what I am doing.
He widened my view on this kind of relationship. He confirmed what I thought ever
since, that indeed, there are many kinds of friends, and among them are those
whose sincerity can be enclosed in quotation marks or tagged with a question
mark.
Still on this issue of “friendship” is
another case of my friend who opened a small eatery. During the first several
weeks of her business, almost every day her “friends” poured in to give
encouragement. Months later, when her business began to pick up, only a few of
her “friends” kept on paying her visits and continued giving her encouragement.
Some eventually stopped their visits, with one even heard making unsavory
remark about her business which was obviously, a show of envy.
I am not alone in persistently writing
about friendship. Books are written about it. Friendship is very important as
it serves as the foundation of other positive relationships among people. Every
relationship starts with friendship, followed by trust….finally, love.
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