Friends and Baggage

 

It occurred to me that we are a thoroughly transactional society -- more than I once thought.

While some folks still use language like "relationships," more and more of us are using words like "connections," even when talking about our families and closest associates.


Transactional friendships can be compared to traveling with luggage.

For example, our wallets and billfolds are kept close, like intimate friends, and we feel disoriented when we discover they're absent. Panic might even set in.

Other friends, important but not as indispensable, are like carry-ons that we stow nearby, still needed and accessible, but we're comfortable with their absence for a while. We reach for them for amusement and diversion and then put them away again.

Other friends are like the luggage we check at the gate or with baggage handlers. We grow frustrated when they aren't where we need them to be, but we'll make due, and if need be we will acquire replacements if they don't turn up.

When a bag is permanently lost, the traveler might learn an important lesson about themselves and their priorities and attachments and might make better decisions going forward.