The right time to burn a bridge

By GARRICK SEE

Updated: February 20, 2013, 7:03 PM

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Back in junior high I had a really good, nay, great friend by the name of Wilson. It was just one of those moments where two people knew that they were going to get along just fine. We did everything together from playing soccer, eating at lunchtime and even hanging out at his place. We joked in class, made fun of teachers, grumbled over test scores (mostly me) and the best thing was we didn’t need anything from each other except our company.

The funny thing is every time we think back to our childhood we remember having the best of times playing around with kids in our neighborhoods and not caring what the consequences were, whether we played in mud with dirty Joe or setting off fireworks at Old Lady Ethel’s house or even sneaking into Jane’s big sister’s room and trying on all her makeup.

Kids have a knack for being comfortable around anyone who is willing enough to play with them and be happy together. They see no harm in making a friend or two, which doesn’t mean that they were adding friends to their collections, but just that it’s nice to know someone else wants you to be around them.

Good friends are hard to come by these days. We go through all sorts of lengths like joining clubs and meeting new people just so we could find someone we’re comfortable enough to connect with. No one likes admitting it, but no man is truly an island by himself: he always wants someone beside him to share the load and the gain. But then the real question is, who do we really want?

We often talk about burning bridges and building new ones according to our preference, but we never consider what those bridges represented in the first place. Sure, some were never meant to be due to the lack of communication but some got burnt on account of the smallest issue one can ever create. Friendships are to be taken whole-heartedly and one should never take advantage of a friend’s trust, because it’s always easy to lose someone’s trust but it’s hard to get it back.
gsee@lanthorn.com

Published February 20, 2013 in Global Perspectives