Genuine Friends

Something I've been experiencing a bit lately has led me to wonder about what makes a genuine friend.  What is the right idea of true friendship, what does that relationship include.

I've come to realise many people are not genuine friends at all, they are simply people who don't want anyone to think bad of them, so they do the bare minimum to appear 'friend-ish', to project the image that they are friendly so that you think there is a friendship connection there.  But in a real sense unless you keep instigating the development of that friendship relationship it would just fade away.

I am inherently a very genuine person - I want genuine connections and interactions with others.  So in taking a review of my social interaction I have noticed that many of my social interactions are only 'friendship connections' because I continually try and meet up with, socialise or develop relationship with these people.  Part of my review was to have a break from my continual attempts to cultivate these connections and I found that 70% of the people I usually socialise with would not think to actually invite me out to anything they were doing - the only reason I had been socialising with them in the past was because I would do the inviting, or be asking what they were doing.

Obviously this has been quite a breaking down experience.  Realising that I don't have the genuineness of friendship with many people I thought I had.  But I have also come to realise who genuine friends are.  They are not the obvious ones either, and this has been a great blessing.  Finding out that some people do genuinely care for my well being, how I am doing, and what I am up to is worth more than my (now apparently vain) attempts at keeping other friendship connections alive.