Hello friends,
hope you are well. Here we are on another day together. Sunny where you are? Here we have received lovely rains.
After spending some time here in Johannesburg, I really got to understand people’s perspective and this perspective, “It’s hard to make friends in Johannesburg,” is what a lot, I mean a lot of women have been saying. I can’t speak for the men, but from what I am seeing is, in general, that men forget what happened yesterday, however, the same cannot be said about women, you know, maybe because women come from Venus and men come from Mars… Who knows …?
You know in other articles such as Why single independent women around the world get so little respect (you know I even forgot to mention the stigma that goes with not being with a man or being married when it comes to Eastern cultures in this article), How queen bee syndrome affects women, The good woman, the self-entitled woman and the princess I mean I do have a load of articles as you can see if you are consistent with all the articles I’ve been writing about various topics thus far on my blog, some unspoken but thought of by many, others very political to women seeking independence yet at the same time both the western and eastern world believes an unmarried woman living her life as she wishes and mostly where she wishes to do it can be a very controversial subject.
So, why is it hard then to make real friends in Johannesburg, and for the matter of fact in any place around the world, especially if you’ve been a traveller choosing to settle somewhere? After this article, I hope we get to really change the world and become better friends no matter where we are. See, we all know that we can make friends, right? However, what stands out in the title of this article? She said, “It’s hard to make real friends in Johannesburg,” and I wondered, “Perhaps it’s hard in any place in the world.”
Hey, do you have a sister or a mother? And if you get along with her, I bet she’s the first person who has your back, she’s the person who is most around you and if you don’t have a sister or mother, perhaps she isn’t there (literally), I even know how that felt when I travelled and have been away for over 18 years. The truth, whether you want to take it from me or not, we all need to be or become better humans, (yes we, including me), there is a certain level of consciousness that comes with just being a friend, no “one-upping,” no game, no seeking to be better than each other, I believe just being acknowledged, loved, respected, treated with dignity and honouring each other’s spirit is enough to connect and to not feel alone, to feel supported, to feel like you have your pack no matter how “high” the situation is or “low” the situation is. Meaning, to stick to your code of conduct no matter what the situation, the external energy feels like (external things can really push a person around and force a person to retreat inwards, or even react out of the code of conduct – not often healthy) and especially how vulnerable someone is. See the piece I highlighted in bold; I believe that is where we women go wrong. This is the real reason why it’s hard to make real friends in Johannesburg, heck! In any place around the world.
You know before COVID everyone, everyone on this planet was exhausted, I can tell you for sure, I mean South Africa and Mexico have people committing suicide even from 7 years of age. Children suicides are overlooked and in this current climate, the suicide rate is really high in general. Now, what are the small things we overlooked in our lives? Socialising, why? We took socialising for granted, maybe even our time for granted. Surely spending quality time connecting with a friend then socialising with someone pretending to connect is much more rewarding but less thought about and so the question is that if your nearest and dearest aren’t around, we would still need to socialise, network and then the million-dollar question is…. How are we seen when we leave a conversation? How was our comportment? Do we leave, making people feel really good about the time we had with them, I think is the most important question of all.
So then why she said, “It’s hard to make real friends in Johannesburg,” and I wondered, “Perhaps it’s hard in any place in the world,” the word real takes us to authenticity that’s it, authenticity, and the million-dollar question again, are you an authentic a-hole of a person not ever looking to improve yourself and remain with the reputation you have or are you willing to change what is required to change so that you can be the change that is required in this world? … You never know who would love your company now, would you? You never know who might be inspired to change looking at your example.
So, if so, many people are saying this, then there must be some truth to it, which is making the ones who really enjoy meeting people reluctant to meet them as opposed to those out there who people are avoid having in their space, and both have their reasons. Being Hindu, I can really speak for the Hindu ladies, as this is where I really see a big gap and space in having something real, funny enough the ladies from India that usually group up, most of the time, have a great bond.
I think it’s important to consider that if one has been living in a place all their life or moved not so far away, real friends always make each other accessible and the downside with moving is that she said, “It’s hard to make real friends in Johannesburg,” and I wondered, “Perhaps it’s hard in any place in the world,” is very true of our lives and being in any part of this planet, until COVID arrived, after COVID I don’t know, but I can only speak for me, I’ve started the journey to become the friend that many friends wish to have in the world even if they’ve met me for the first time (I really hope I do well here) because I can truly tell you how that feels with the life I had before COVID. I wish and when you read this sentence, please wish me well on this as I wish you too that I can be seen as a genuine friend even if we’ve met just once and keeping fingers crossed, we’ll be friends for life.
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support by purchasing my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
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Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to re-evaluate them.
