Quicksilver Friendships - Handle With Care

I went to a party tonight and it got me thinking about mercury (aka quicksilver).

This party was an all-girl affair (men intentionally not invited since everybody didn't have one to bring, I suppose) with women I've known for less than a year. No bosom buddies,in fact some definitely not so, but we laughed, ate great food, drank good wine and danced like kids at a 5-year old's birthday party. And it was good for us. We didn't leave the party being closer friends, but we left exhilerated from the sheer human enrichment of socializing with others. And I've come to realize there is great value in that.

Years ago when kids learned chemistry (so I'm told), they did experiments with mercury, which is one of the few metals that is liquid at room temperature but doesn't explode or spontaneously burst into flame in open air. It is a metal in every sense, a silvery liquid, with so much surface tension that when poured into droplets, it forms beads that immediately coalesce to form a seamless whole as if they have a life of their own. Fascinating metal, mercury. Because of its unique properties, it can be used in ways solid metals can't, for example in measuring temperature and pressure changes.

So what does this have to do with the party?

Well, now we know that mercury is toxic. That beautiful silver liquid can linger in my body and cause all sorts of damage. What we know today about how mercury behaves has made us way more cautious, right? We don't touch it with our bare hands, we clean it up quickly when it spills and take lots of precautions to do it. And we don't want to accidentally consume it - or too much of it - so we limit our fish intake. That sure is a big change in the way we view the beautiful metal. I was thinking tonight that my savvy about friendships has kind of evolved in the same way.

When I was a teenager, I only counted as friends girls I liked and who I thought would be loyal, just like me (or even me like them), and who definitely would do no harm to me or my other friends. Fast forward a bit, well maybe a few years, and there's a new reality. I've learned that even people who I genuinely view as friends can sometimes say and do things that are not loyal, loving or kind. Surprise! Plus, all friends don't serve the same purpose in my life. Some are closer and we let each other into the intimate details of our lives. Some have to be taken in small doses, because they're still in a phase of personal development where they can be just toxic enough to cause pain if I'm over-exposed to them. And it's OK.

The beautiful thing is I now consider all these handle-with-care relationships to be part of the cohesive positive thing that friendship as a whole can be in our lives. Even the ugly parts of friendship can add to who I am. I've been betrayed by a close friend. That taught me to be careful in what I say and to whom. I've been disappointed when a friend has not been there. So I learned to re-evaluate the expectations I set in my own mind for others, and I learned to broaden my circle. So some friendships are quicksilver, you have to measure carefully, understand where they add benefit to your life and where they do not. Take the right precautions, and consume in very limited doses. But maybe we can bring positive value to a relationship with a toxic person as well. Review carefully though, if there is no benefit coming out of this friendship to either party, it may be time to throw it on the "biohazard" pile.

This post is not about all the great friendships we are sometimes blessed to have. We all know about the virtues of those. This is about the others. We all fall into those too. I say look for the good, the character-building value, and absorb the emotional deposit that we get from having a social interaction even if it's not a deep one. If that quicksilver friendship hits a spot in your present, acknowledge that and keep going, and growing.

I've always wondered why no-one created a home on the Web for people who love the look of glorious, shiny, quicksilver hair. You know what they say, if you recognize the problem, you may be the solution! The plan is to link this blog to the new web site I created called www.mygrayhair.com. Just loading content, but check it out soon and let me know what you think!