The Unsolicited

A chill runs down my spine when someone I don't even know expects me to be his friend. There were times when I din't mind being friends with the unknown and some of those once unknown people are good friends today.

But I must admit that I haven't been that lucky always. Few people have left a very deep impact on my naive understanding about human beings. I have learnt through some costly mistakes that not everybody on earth is good and that many wear a mask of goodness about them which otherwise seldom exists on their real face.

Just being from a very good college or working with a very good company or belonging to my community don't make you an eligible friend. And no doubt after my mistakes of making false friends I prefer being scrupulous enough in terms of choosing people that I would want to share my thoughts or any piece of information with.

A man is known by the company he keeps, so as a kid I preferred having no company instead of bad ones. But as I grew I felt that I could have been wrong. Perhaps, it was more of my own conviction that was required. If I'm strong enough then no company can change my conviction. But that's not the case. Unfortunately, you automatically get linked with the company.

So when I get poured with requests of people wanting to make friends with me, I find it very surprising that when I don't wish to join the unknown company, when I don't know the unsolicited person, when I don't share any common interest with him or when I don't see any reasons of why we must be friends, yet such people wish to befriend me.

Over a period of time I have learnt not to trust people easily. I have learnt to have an air of defiance about me and I refuse to shed this shield, the absence of which would harm me. I feel solace in the fact that I eschew these unsolicited people. No doubt then, I would continue to abjure them. And I prefer it that way.