Have You Googled Your Old Buddies Online?

The other day I met a friend from our university days online. I've not met him for nearly ten years or so. My heartfelt gratitude to that popular web2.0. Sorry, but I'm not telling which web2.0 because even if I were to promote their site, they wouldn't give me one bit when they decided to sell for millions of dollars to those fat cats.

Well, this buddy of mine is one that I feel most comfortable with because of his great sense of humor and one that I can be myself when we are together as young adults celebrating life. What I can say with certainty is that friendship cannot be measured in years, for that simply cannot be the yardstick by which we measure relationships.

Remember those sayings, "a friend in need is a friend indeed," and "he that is your friend indeed will help you in your need." And don't forget this classic: it is easy to sacrifice for a friend but is not that easy to find a friend who deserves the sacrifice.

They all sound corny as ever, but believe it or not, they still ring true, just as before and in fact, nowadays even more.

I have a sneaky suspicion, which others might share, that friendship, or what remains of it, has gone with the wind, down the drain, along with family values, social cohesion and all those other sticky things that bind people together. Where are my childhood chums? Sometimes I wonder if they ever existed. Where are my high school buddies and the rest of my university friends? Can I find them in Facebook, MySpace, Mylot etc? Are they busy making money and trying desperately to be successful in their careers?

So be it. Who needs friends anyway? As long as one has a job, is healthy and doing pretty well at work, who needs friends? Since they don't google about me nor search for me at web2.0s, why should I care?

But I do care and I often ask. Perhaps I'm old fashioned and my ideas even older but I happen to come from the school of thought which thinks that a growing relationship over the years between friends is like a bank balance that increases as more savings are put into it.

And I truly believe that a friend is the mirror image of his friend. And I am also of the opinion that, unfortunately, you don't really know who your real friends are until some tsunami befalls you.

Or am I wrong to say that people would rather make one fast buck online than to have one million friends?