Counting (on) friends

If you peek at my Facebook account you’ll see that I have more than 700 virtual friends. Pretty impressive, right? Thanks to the wonders of social media, I am absolutely swimming in friendship!  Look a little closer, though, and you’ll discover that many of my friends are people I don’t really ever see, except for online.  Whether it’s due to distance or time, we simply don’t really have occasion to be together in real life.  Does this mean we aren’t really friends?  How do you define a true friend?

Over the years, I’ve learned that the number of friends I have isn’t really that important.  No, that’s not really how I measure friendship.  You see, it’s not about the counting of, instead, it is very much about the counting on.  True friends are the ones on which we can rely upon to do as they say and follow through on their promises, regardless of how infrequently we actually see one another in person.  Those are the people who add immensely to our lives.  Each day brings a new opportunity to be that kind of friend.  Count on it.