friendship Archives - Successful Blog

33 Twitterers Answer: How Do You Recognize a LifeLong Friend?

August 21, 2010 by Liz

The LANGUAGE of SOCIAL MEDIA

Words have a deep effect on
how we interpret and interact with the world.
The words we use and how we define them
reveal our interests, concerns, and values.
This series explores the words of social media.

friends

We meet people in all facets of our lives online and offline. We meet our online friends offline at gatherings, conferences and meetups. We invite people we know offline to connect with us at sites where we spend our time online as well.

People online and offline make up our communities and the networks that provide our learning and our support. We call these people our colleagues, our coworkers, our families, our acquaintances, our pals, buddies, BFFs and our friends. But occasionally some one in that community of people we reach out to bring closer a smaller group stands out because we begin to know they’re in for the longer haul.

We call those people friends for life. They are the people for whom we would drop everything and fly around the world to help solve their problem. They are the ones for whom we’re always ready to answer the 2 a.m. call.

Recently on Twitter, I asked this question … 33 people answered.

How do you know a lifelong friend when you meet one?

@ashleykingsley
The way yoiu can laugh together.
@@inyourfacebook
similar sense of humor/values
@AbbieF
immediate connection. If you have to ask might not be.
@ashleykingsley
The way yoiu can laugh together.
@IsCool
You don’t.
@Chris_Eh_Young
I imagine that would be a singularly self-evident revelation. 🙂
@those2girls
YUP RT @Chris_Eh_Young It’s something U feel.
@cdnmortgage
It really is! RT @Chris_Eh_Young: It’s something you feel.
@Illig
I imagine that would be a singularly self-evident revelation. 🙂
@swoodruff
I can sometimes intuit that level of connection when I meet someone. Lifelong friend status takes time.
@mkohpotts
the difference between a friend for life and a friend for now
@ISLfinancial
You don’t have to say one word but if you do – it is the right word!
@Miss_Dazey
You just know, Liz! 😉 // Sometimes you just know a good friend by the way she tweets or blogs.
@EmmaLTaylor
you don’t always know which is why you should give them a chance
@rmclin
When you are active in a relationship for life. The ones that are there for you when you need help unconditionally.
@GlendaWH
You just know, Liz! 😉
@ScottMonty
To me, it’s about being able to have differing views but with the same value system.
@Joe Manna
when you can call or txt them anytime and they’re there for you. (And vice-versa.)
@asandford
You never know if someone might be a forever friend. I try to treat every friend as if I’ll have them forever!
@debng
They don’t ask me who I’m with.
@esgarg
Intuition.
@debmorello
I think you just know. The give and take the same, values, the same?
p.s. unconditional
@tabarnhart
it’s the secret handshake.
@slines
Some times u don’t have 2 meet them in person; u know they care
@CateTV
when they positively talk about/lift/promote someone else up other than themselves during first conversation w/o asking
@mkohpotts
I don’t know. I have been wrong enough.
@morgetz
It’s immediate recognition of friendship.
@Briddick
I think you just know. Esp when you can talk to someone for hours and it seems like time flies!
@TimJackson
sometimes you don’t- which is kinda wonderful. Sometimes it happens over time & w/o warning. Others- there’s a spark, like love. . . . and I have some lifelong friends who I’ve yet to ever meet in person- modern friendship is an amazingly bizarre blessing.
@SuzeMuse
I walk away with a smile on my face.
@lyksumlikrish
Easy. You can’t stop the conversation!
@ReallyJeannie
When it feels like a miracle.
@JasonFalls
The fact they give me $1000 … or an open mouth kiss. Heh.

Lifelong friendship is a bond of trust and loyalty. We communicate with our lifelong friends without the filters that make us stop to consider what they might be thinking about us. I am proud to follow all 33 of these folks on Twitter. @LizStrauss

I’ve made a TweepML list of 33 Twitterers Who Recognize a LifeLong Friend in case you want to follow them too.

How do you recognize a lifelong friend?

Got more to add? C’mon let’s talk.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Get your best voice in the conversation. Buy my eBook.

Celebrating Friends

April 4, 2008 by Liz

about the gifts that have been coming my way.

This morning when I turned on my computer, a friend was there waiting for me. He came with a gift. He saw a need, built something to meet it, and asked if I might find it useful. What he offered was beautiful, elegant, and much better than I might do. It was the kindness of a friend reaching out with a head, a heart, and a hand.

Friends have a way of doing like that so well.

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known them — a minute, an hour, a lifetime. Somehow friends have a way of knowing who we are and how to be there in just the right way. They make smiles brighter, suns shinier, sad times lighter, and achievements greater. It’s not what they bring or what they offer. The acts and the words they supply simply underscore the value of the friendship they represent.

Friends are the true gifts of a life.

This weekend I’ll be celebrating my friends.

How about you?

Image Source: stock.xchng.com, standard restrictions

Same and Different Friends

September 5, 2007 by Liz

about same and different.

At the beginning of the month, I spent time working with my friend, Peg. We’ve been friends since 1995.

Peg and I are the same and different.

Most people are taken by the differences.

Ask Char, she met Peg the day Char and I had our first meeting. I think she would tell you that it would be hard to imagine two Caucasian women who seemed more compatibly different.

When Peg and I worked in the same building, people often took one of us aside to ask what our friendship was about. They couldn’t find a place where our two minds might actually meet.

Too funny.

From the second we met Peg and I had a universe to sort out. . . . starting with how kids learn to read.

Imagine a company dinner to introduce three new consultants, one of whom was me. It was the kind of dinner Peg hates to attend. It was the kind of dinner that so appealed to my curiosity. I sat in the middle of the long restaurant table with my newest best friend, the consultant I had met the night before. Peg sat near the end with a long-time friend. I asked and answered questions. I told stories. Peg listened, waiting for dinner to be over.

As we were leaving the restaurant, she came up to me to say, “You’re one different lady. I’m free Saturday. I know you’re staying at the hotel. I’d like to take you to lunch. I’ll buy all of the wine it takes for you to tell me how kids learn to read.” (Peg, Director of Operations, wanted to know how the books her warehouse folks shipped and her customer service folks talked about served children.)

I said, “Sure, I’m Liz.” I thought, she reminds me of me.

This month when I saw Peg, I heard her say something she often says, “Why would I want to have friends with people who are the same as me? That would be redundant?”

I answered, “We meet where we agree.” I was thinking of a Venn diagram.
Peg observed, “I find the ways people are different from me. You find the ways they are the same as you.”

Peg and I are always observing and learning from each other. We’re always there when the other needs something. She still buys the wine. I still tell her how kids learn to read.

Peg and I are the same and different. Not a thing about us is redundant, yet you can bet we know the places and spaces where we are the same.

That’s why we are worth so much to each other.

Do you have a same and different friend?

How to Recognize a Friend

June 7, 2007 by Liz

Identity and Relationships

Since SOBCon, a lot of conversation has gone about friendship and what it means. Many words and phrases have been used to describe it.

As you read this, I’ll already be on a plane on my way to New York, where I’ll meet friends again — three already in my heart (two I’ve met, one I have not yet); two I’ve talked to on the phone; one I hardly know; and some I’ve not imagined. I’ll miss them all when I head home again.

With those thoughts in my head and my heart, I’m moved to write about how to recognize a friend when you have the luck to meet one.

Friendship isn’t hard to spot.

It’s an action, a feeling, a way of being all at once.

It’s a perception and a reality that is exchanged without speaking.

It’s the comfortable white space between the words in conversation.

It’s the smile in the eyes of someone that says, “We just met, but I know who you are.”

It’s that “come out and play” kind of feeling.

You can recognize a friend, because no matter what happens, with that person you are someone you want to be.