A friend is someone who wants to spend time with you often. They value your company and show you how much they truly appreciate your time and attention when you are able to give it to them.
In today's world of busybodies, where everyone seems to have a million things going on at any given time, it is vital to make time for the people whom we consider our friends. Building true and lasting friendships is largely dependent on the amount of time two individuals spend together, as well as how frequently those individuals spend time together. After all, if friendship relies on vulnerability and support, then we have to make time for our friend to be vulnerable in our presence. If we want our friend to feel comfortable being vulnerable around us, we have to foster a sense of trust in them by showing them that we enjoy their presence in our life and frequently desire their company. The more time you spend with them, the more comfortable they will feel around you, and the more comfortable they feel around you, the more willing they will be to let their walls down and be authentic with you.
The more authentic our friend is with us, the more compelled we will be to also be authentic with them. Authenticity is the key to building long lasting true friendships. True friendship is like an equation with several variables, but the certain constant that is always present is the need for frequent association with each other. You'll know when someone wants to develop a deep and lasting bond of true friendship with you if they are constantly trying to spend time with you. If you also wish to develop that kind of relationship with that person, it then falls on you to make some time in your life to be in their company. They will love you all the more for it, knowing that you specifically took some time out of your busy schedule so that you could be in each other's company for a while.
You don't even have to have a set plan or agenda when you decide to spend time with your friend, because a true friend values every moment that you spend together, regardless of what it is you end up doing. You could end up just sitting around talking to each other for hours, and the time you spend together will always be an invaluable treasure to a true friend. The most important thing when it comes to spending time with your friend is not so much what the plan is or what ends up happening, but the company you're in when those things happen. It is the company we keep that makes our experiences a wonderful time for us, not the experiences themselves. After all, the main reason we yearn for friendship as human beings is because of a deep-seated desire to share in those experiences with another human being.
A true friend, when in your presence, will strive to always give you his undivided attention. The time that friends are in each other's company should be a time for that relationship alone. It is a time when we put aside all our other distractions and associations in the world in order to fully associate with each other while in our friend's presence. This is our friend's way of letting us know that they truly value and appreciate the time that we took out of our day just to be with them. Why bother hanging out with someone if you're just going to be glued to your phone all night? When two friends meet, it is a time to forget about everything else in the world and simply be in the present moment, enjoying each other's company. How are you supposed to learn more about your friend if your mind is too preoccupied with Facebook and texting other people?
If we are to have frequent association with someone who we want to continue to develop true friendship with, we should do them the courtesy of allowing our time with them to be solely and completely their time, so we can focus on actually getting to know them better and deepening the bond that we share. Everyone else can have our time when we are not with our friend, but the moment we engage in a meeting with our friend and enter into their presence, our time should be theirs alone until the time we go our separate ways. To do otherwise is like telling our friend, "Thanks for being here, but you're not really that important to me right now, sorry."
If we wish to build genuine, heartfelt true friendships, the type of relationship in which we may satisfy that human need for deep and authentic connection with another human being, then we must make a real effort to make time to hang out with the people we wish to develop such bonds with.
It is through frequent association with our friend, as well as having an unchanging love for them, that the relationship can grow and deepen. Friendship In a New Age can only grow if we put aside the hustle and bustle of the world to make time to be with our friend often.