The Ultimate Guide to Friendship - How to Build Friendships Offline and Online

Human beings are often described as social creatures. We are almost never found alone, and even when we are physically alone, we are constantly thinking about other people in our lives. When was the last time you thought of a plan that did not include anyone else? When was the last time you saw a dream in which there were no other people but you? It does not happen that way with us. Everything that we do, consciously or otherwise needs to have other people in it. That is the way nature has ordained us to be.

From the point that we are born till our last breath, we want people to be around us. Maybe the only time in our lives when we do not want people to be with us is when we are sleeping, but even that is not entirely true, is it? Even when we sleep ‘alone’, we want other people to sleep in the same room as us. How many people should I tell you about who would not get a wink of sleep at night if they had to sleep alone in a room!

But, what I feel most amazing about this socialness of our behavior is that we can induce habits in other people. The way we live—the social part of our living—influences other people whether we want that to happen or not. It actually brings about a change in their lives, however small that might be.

There was a phase in my life when my family was living in a lush countryside, verdant with all the green one could find. This was an idyllic place to live and I really enjoyed the few years I spent in that sylvan retreat. Now, everything was truly mesmerizing about that place, but there was one thing that irked me in my initial days there. I always like to start my mornings with a hot cup of coffee and a crisp newspaper that still carries the smell of the printing press to read. It is just my habit. I am not very fond of getting to know what’s happening in the world outside—I rely more on the Internet for that—but the newspaper is a childhood habit that I cannot break even now. So, when I was living in that beautiful house, everything was quite sufficient for my needs, but my regular supply of the newspaper was brutally truncated. No newspaper vendor could foot it out that much just to deliver a paper to my house, though the nearby village had a good supply of it.