In the Rare Times I Get Serious

My friend Patrick and I got into a little debate today.  He says that people without similar core values cannot be true friends, while I said they could.  It is a similar argument my parents make.  They tell me to marry somebody with the same culture since that is the only way we would get along.  My idealist mind cannot wrap my head around this.  

Patrick did make some good points.  The people who I surround myself with are people with some similar core values, as least in the aspect I talk to them about, but I don’t see how having different views would prevent friendship.  He used religion as an example.  He said that how could I ever be friends with a person who thinks you will go to hell.  That makes sense, but that isn’t what they think about all the time.  If they do, then I will probably be their friend in another aspect of their life.  

People are friends with each other for different reasons.  Though I agree with Patrick that friends share core values in some sense, it is only in the aspects they talk about.  People have different facets and it is improbable that one would meet a person that would fit perfectly with everything.  I have friends for each aspect of my life and I usually converse with them about that.  Maybe to Patrick that isn’t considered a true friend.  

This really forced me to think about who is my friend and why.  I can’t consider random people I talk to friends.  I guess when people’s ideas resonate with me then friendship is easier.  Still, the idealist in me can’t accept that friendship cannot exist between opposite people.  Yes it may not happen for me, but that is just me.  I would probably get annoyed if someone had such a different mentality than mine that we couldn’t communicate on a basic level.  I may not be the best candidate, but I’m sure somewhere it works out.  I’m a dreamer and I’m probably wrong, but I want to believe it exists.  I guess Patrick won the debate this time.