How many do you have?

a reply to: DAVID64

My friends are those who stand by me when I don't ask.

I have enough now to know the rest of my life will never have moments when I have to be alone or struggle....although it only takes one good soul.

They can count on me too, and for that, I feel proud to have survived a trip to hell, returning as an invinsible until I draw my last breath.

HA!

a reply to: DAVID64

Basically, facebook friends aren't real friends. Do people actually think that they are? If so, that's delusional.

They're acquaintances. Connections. Not friends.

You people on ATS know me better than most people besides my close friends and family. So actually, I'd probably consider you people more of my friends than I would the people I am friends with on facebook.

I have one friend - my partner. Everyone else I know are just acquaintances.

I don't do Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever else may be the rage today. I have acquaintances in my guilds in online games, I have neighbours in my block of units that are acquaintances. And, since I'm only a newbie here, you're all a bunch of strangers!

My children and my spouse are the only ones allowed in my inner circle. I do have a fb because my son and my grandchildren live 2000 miles away. I have never been able to physically meet two of my grandbabies. Fb lets me see them grow up. I have school friends on fb as well that have stood the test of time but barely a handful over the last 20 years. I stopped opening my friendship door when too many stabbed me in the back. Arms length is as close as anyone will ever get now. I have trust issues that I will never get passed. It will never be possible to open myself up to initiating a friendship and leaving myself vulnerable.

a reply to: kaelci

Dont forget LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus+, Tumblr, Instagram, VK, Flickr, vine, tagged and Periscope


Its all good mate~!!

a reply to: ReadLeader

Oh gosh... They're multiplying!! I didn't even realise there were that many (and probably more lurking in the shadows).

Friends are one of the few things I am rich in. 8 of us (including me) still get together pretty much every weekend. Shoot pool, play poker, stuff like that. I've been friends with these guys since grade school and we've done some pretty stupid, er, I mean cool things over the years so the trust is there. ( As another poster said though, we're all well over 30)

Now guns, I have none, but a few of the guys are hunters and what they have evens it out for the rest of us lol

Something a lot of people forget....

The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I guess I only have four really good friends. I don't see them every day, and I honestly don't spend time on the telephone much with anyone. I hate telephones. But we find ways to get together and keep in touch regularly.
These four people are ones that I totally trust with any knowledge or info about me, and they trust me too.


One friend I've known since I was ten years old, one I've known for twenty years, one I've known for ten years, and one I have only known for two years.


I have a lot of less close friends, or aquaintances, besides them, but I admit I am more guarded with everyone else.

On Facebook, I have "friends" that I barely know at all - people from forums I stopped going to years ago!
But it is funny, some of those, I have become sort of attached to following their lives!
This one woman (from a forum I never go to anymore) had a child, and I have watched her grow through the years. She is the most photogenic and adorable child.. seeing her photos is a great way to start my day in the morning!
I've cried as I witnessed virtual strangers go through terrible diseases and pass away. I laugh at the adventures some of these people describe going through at work, on the other side of the world...

Far from being the superficial and narcissistic activity it is often accused of being, I find it a nice reminder that the world out there is made of individuals with complex and full lives. I can sit at a café, and watch hundreds of people walk by, and I often think of all those Facebook "friends" - maybe the person walking by has a cute kid, or had a kid die in a car crash, or battled with cancer, or had to dodge a drunk driver barreling into the store she works at once... or struggles with her weight, or is trying to reconcile his religion with his politics... all these touching and moving life stories that happen to people everyday.


I have an old friend from high school on Facebook that is such a radical conspiracy theorist, I am pretty sure he is a member of this site (I just need to figure out which one he is, and that makes it fun )

I guess where my thoughts are going is that though I have formed bonds of trust with only a few people, I don't devalue the less developed relationships. Those are beneficial too, in their own way.

a reply to: DAVID64

I would say i have about 15 (give or take a couple) real friends. A couple of them are FB only or MMPORG only or internet only, but mainly those I know in real life.

I have many acquaintances. But real friends, I have had some since middle school. My best friend, since I was 4 and she was 3. We talk about weekly and go out every couple weeks- her daughter is 9, so she has to depend on a sitter.

I have lived on 2 coasts. I am 'married' in game on Wartune and he does visit here, the 'Wartune husband'.

I tend to have kept some friends over the course of my life. They just do not go away. That speaks to my ability to form close bonds, I think/ Many have fallen to acquaintance status. Though the number stands at about 15 that I would do anything for and they would do anything for me.

originally posted by: rukia
a reply to: DAVID64

Basically, facebook friends aren't real friends. Do people actually think that they are? If so, that's delusional.

They're acquaintances. Connections. Not friends.

You people on ATS know me better than most people besides my close friends and family. So actually, I'd probably consider you people more of my friends than I would the people I am friends with on facebook.

I think about 2 of the 175 FB friends I have that I only met through FB are real friends. It is not delusional to say so.

ATS is a family of sorts, and I have referred to it that way

a reply to: DAVID64

My wife, primarily.
Some of the people I served with.
My dog.

originally posted by: ReadLeader
a reply to: kaelci

Dont forget LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google Plus+, Tumblr, Instagram, VK, Flickr, vine, tagged and Periscope

Its all good mate~!!

I used to do ICQ and Yahoo, not in years, though. No instagram. I post to twitter here and there, but don't have friends on it. No Google+ (except for the fact gmail seems to integrate it). No tumblr no vine or any of those others. Some of my friends are on reddit so they cross there. There is at least one ATS member I am also FB friends with that I know of- her name is Dawn, more may be and haven't told me.

I sort of want to make a Pinterest. But not to make friends.

originally posted by: JimNasium
Answer: 1. It is that "voice" in My head. He has Me convinced that He is the only One I need to appease. When He is "quiet" ALL is well and it has taken Me hours and hours of reflection/meditation to quiet Him.

He tells Me ALL sorts of things and sometimes I'll go to sleep and I'll come to find out that whilst I slept, He went traipsing about.. He tells Me that He'll NEVER leave Me and that I can ALWAYS count on Him. He is fun.

W/a friend like Him, who needs 'friend-emies'?

namaste

LOL that is just creepy.

a reply to: DAVID64

I have one friend of 33 years, whom I'd throw myself under a train to save - my Wife. None other are needed.

I don't know that I could count them, or would. Friends are people I can count on and that can count upon me. Some of them live where I do, others scattered around the world, some I have never met face-to-face but have talked with enough to know them. I call them family.

In my world there are relatives, which you are born with. People you choose and who choose you are family. On rare occasion a person is both.

000000000

Friends......so overrated. A true friend is a person you could go twenty years without seeing them...but if you need them their there for you. I have 9 feline friends & a wife......I'm all set on the friend thingy.

A friend is someone who is capable of loyalty and the ability to give as well as take. Trust, loyalty and respect are becoming rarer commodities in today's world.
To answer the OP's other question, 2. There are two human beings in this world that I know would stand by me as I would them. My husband and my brother, they are the only two people I can even trust anymore. I'm raising two more currently. I love them and would die for all four of them. My boys still need me as mama though, not as a friend just yet.