How close is too close?

Friendship might seem like an obvious topic to discuss, but the truth is, it is such a complex yet common relationship that can come in way too many forms, can affect our lives constructively or destructively and can last a few days or a lifetime.

We have all been introduced to teenage friendship. This can be the most intense kind of friendship as both friends start discovering the world and turning into adults under the influence of the combined effort of conceiving ideas, thoughts, beliefs, hobbies and even morals. Friendships that start in teenage years and continue through to adult years are extremely solid relationships and can last a lifetime.

Then there is the colleague friendship, that friendship that forms at school or in the workplace simply because both parties need company during unavoidable daily duties. Those can be as shallow or as deep as both parties will allow. Many of those friendships end soon after the common factor ends. Although those that can survive while parties are apart can turn into beautiful

I have learned that the most solid type of friendship is the one that forms around hardships. Friends that help each other or experience together devastation only to come out stronger, together establish an implied understanding that if the worst happen, there will be someone to lean on.

Lifetime friendships can start anywhere and at anytime. They come like lifesavers to help you through rough patches and personal struggles. You connect to your close friends the way you connect to yourself. You learn to vent and express and grow through your close friends. They become more like family, you protect you friends and help them and are willing to spend the kind of time and effort on them that you wouldn’t normally spend on people. You will be willing to sacrifice your own good in favors of theirs.

Losing a friendship can cause great pain and if the friend you had lost was a person you had a deep connection with, this can scar a person for life. Sometimes circumstances see that a friendship is shattered, travel, differences and even death may cause a friendship to end.

What I am troubled by the most though, are friendships that end because a helping hand is not welcomed. I understand that some people are private, independent or even introverts. But I do not understand how those individuals expect a supposedly close friend stand by and watch while they harm themselves. I do not understand how I am expected to be a close friend if I do not receive and offer help. I do not understand any other way a friendship could be. I do not understand how you can be so close to a person who is willing to abandon you and lock you out as soon as you get too close.

Was it my fault with these friendships to worry? To care? To insist on offering a helping hand? To watch over the friends I care about and try to predict their needs, to spare them the pain of having to ask for help? Was it a myth that the hand that feeds never gets bitten? How close is too close? How do you know that you are crossing the accepted line? How else can you be a friend without offering help? I know not all private people refuse to open up to their close friends, but are there people who are too private to have close friends?