too many friends?

Do you ever feel like you have one too many friends--maybe come Christmas when you realize your shopping list may be a little too long? I think it was around the time I was sending out graduation invitations and discovered U gad about a 3 page list of friends and family members I needed to send announcements too, funny how about the time my baby was born that list shrunk quite drastically (granted by then we were paying by the announcement rather than by groups of 100).

Why is it that when you are getting married, graduating, or having a baby your list of who to send the announcements too is super long, but when the actual occasion comes that the people who actually get invites is so much shorter--like 1/20th shorter? Someone once told me you make the announcement list so long because the more announcements you send the more presents you will receive--but if it is so long for that simple reason why not just use the phone book to address the envelopes--send an announcement to everyone from A-Z in the phone book, you are bound to get a lot of presents, even from people you don't know because you know there are people out there who don't keep in touch with their families so even when a complete strangers announcement comes in the mail they insist that it is a relative of some sort just and send a gift to not affend said relative, and the less they know their family members the bigger the gift we be because they are hoping the bigger the gift the less they have to write on the card, because if you are getting a Porsche for graduation you aren't going to care that it didn't come with a card, you are going to be to busy driving it around--or so they hope (OK, so I realize that is an exageration, but it gets the point across) Also, if you are just sending out announcements to get gifts, why not send them to rich people, like Donald trump and the queen of England, and lets not forget the president?

Well before this turns into a 5 page novel I just want to get to the point of this, I think we all have different expectations from friends because we have all different sorts of friends, we have those friends that we would call to let them know we got engaged, we have those friends we would send announcements out to when we become engaged, and we have those friends who are right around the corner waiting to scream and shout and jump for joy when he finally gives you that huge rock.

We all know that time and distance are huge indicators of what type of friend a friend will be, I also think that how much we put into the friendship affects what we will get out of said friendship and although you enjoy spendign the afternoon with someone sitting next to them in church and catching up on the latest gossip you aren't exactly going to cancel a dinner date with your significant other to take them to the ER when they get a migraine headache and can't see to drive themselves, and yet there is that other friend you only see once in a while when schedules permit but you would be willing to drive cross county in a blizzard just to give her a hug when she calls to tell you her aging cat finally passed and how it happened while she was at work, and you do it because you know she would do it for you too.

The more I think about it though, the more I realize how I have wasted a lot of my time investing time into friendships thinking that when my time came they would do the same for me, only to discover that the time has come and suddenly that friend is "too busy" or unable to for whatever reason they state and that is when I have to face the facts and realize they won't only using me for rides or cheap babysitting or to cheat off my homework, but I was using them that I was hoping to use them to better my social status because they were hip or popular or whatever reason I thought they coudl better my life if I only did my part long enough--but the truth is that a friendship based on self gain (I..E. you become friends so you can use their discount, etc...) isn't really a friendship at all, and I have taken a bit of time lately to step back and re-think my friendships only to discover that most of my friendships are actually turning out to be fakeships, because true friends have to be willing to give and not just take.

Anyhow, to answer my own questions, no I don't think you ever have too many friends, actually, despite how time consuming friendships can actually be, the more friends you have the less strain you have to put on any single relationship when hard times come your way, just be certain that you are friends for the right reasons, and make sure they are, too