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Unit 8, page 124.

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Read.

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Friends.

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I was having trouble finding a subject for this week's column

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until my wife Amanda said,

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What about friendship?

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Talk about that.

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You have lots of friends.

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I thought about that a while and realized my perspective on friendship

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has changed considerably.

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When I was a boy, I had the naive notion that friends were either true or false.

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But now I recognize the complexity of friendship.

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There are many types of friends.

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In fact, I can identify at least five types.

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Type 1.

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Convenience friends.

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These are the friends we make when our schedules and activities coincide.

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Years ago, I was starting a new job and didn't have a way of getting to work easily.

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I tried taking the bus, but the commute was ridiculously long.

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Then I learned that Andres, a co-worker,

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lived near me.

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He had a car, and it was convenient for him to pick me up.

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We became friends by riding with each other and developed a good relationship.

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We didn't get together outside the work context, though.

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Type 2.

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Special interest friends.

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My brother, whose passion is kayaking, belongs to a kayaking club.

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He's made several good buddies at meetings and on river trips.

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They have exciting times when they go kayaking.

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Likewise, living through dangerous experiences has made them close.

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Once the trips are over, though, they don't socialize with each other.

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Their special interest is the only thing that holds them together.

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Type 3.

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Online friends.

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Online friendship is a new phenomenon made possible by technology.

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Communicating with people online has never been easier.

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Many people today have a rather wide circle of friends that they rarely,

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or never,

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meet in person,

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but whom they regularly talk to or exchange messages with online.

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But there can be a downside.

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If someone says something upsetting on social media, for example,

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it's easy to abandon the relationship just by unfriending that person.

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However, if one is willing to commit to staying friends,

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the friendship can be rewarding and fulfilling.

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We can be online friends with interesting people all over the world

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that we might never be able to meet in person.

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Type 4.

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Part of a couple friends.

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My wife Amanda and Greta, the wife of my buddy Bill,

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are good examples of this common type of friendship.

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When our partner has a friend in another couple,

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we have to go through the often difficult process

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of getting to know the other person in that couple.

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People may feel they have little or nothing in common with their counterpart

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and may even resent having to socialize with a friend

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they don't know.

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They may even feel they don't find compatible.

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Fortunately, Amanda and Greta have become good friends on their own

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through their common interest in running.

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Type 5. Best friends.

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To me, a best friend is a person with whom we don't have a problem

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being honest or vulnerable.

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It's someone who will never desert you,

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who keeps no record of wrongs,

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who doesn't spare your feelings

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or avoid telling you what you need to hear.

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I have two best friends.

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One is my best friend,

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is ken whom i met in the military our having gone through difficult experiences has bonded us for

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life the other is amanda we love having long conversations that can wander everywhere and

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nowhere sometimes we talk for hours we both love being listened to other times we like being

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together without saying much of anything i would have a hard time living without my two best

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friends but it's important to have the others too visit me kyle books on facebook