Friends: People Who Make Life Better

Imagine my delight when I checked my twitter thingy and found a link to this article, written by my good friend Amanda. You can be damn sure that it made me feel fantastic.

As she said in her article, we became friends in the first year of high school. The ultra-polite euphemism she used to describe me was “socially awkward”, but I can guarantee it would have been much worse if I didn’t have friends like her to back me up.

Amanda has remained one of the few people that I feel I can talk to properly. She is powerfully intelligent, and it was such a rare pleasure to have a real conversation with someone in high school. One that didn’t involve nonsensical male bravado* or the hurling of apple cores. Those rewarding conversations with Amanda have continued to this day, although they are far too infrequent.

She has put up with years of my whinging on a variety of subjects and has remained inspiring in her compassion and sheer ability to not get sick of me. For that I am grateful. I have never doubted our friendship, Amanda, although I have often puzzled over what you get out of it.

In her article, she suggested that her friends come over and check out my blog; something she certainly didn’t have to do. I welcome with open arms anyone who recognises that Amanda is worth listening to, because I am certain you are someone that I would like to know. And if there is anyone here who *doesn’t* already visit Amanda’s site on a  regular basis, then head on over to Jing-Wen.com.

Thank you for years of friendship.

Jake

*Something that stuck indelibly in my mind was a statement made by a male acquaintance in year 8, when talking of a female acquaintance he was going to spend some time with after school. He said, “I’m going to spread her like a starfish”. I can promise you he didn’t.

Tagged as: Blogging, Friends