The word sociology itself has known to be derived in a Greek work ‘ socius’ which means companion or associate in English terms. Studying sociology which literally means the quantitative or qualitative study of human social behaviour with regards to their origins, institutions, organizations and development of human society, I can relate now to the old saying which goes like “ birds with the same feathers flock together” and realized how important commonality is especially when being with some people that you believe you will fit in. That is how we classify friendship which is but a norm when being with people of common beliefs and agenda.
As far as I understand from the context of sociological perspective, being with friends is not compulsory and not by chance. Being with friends is optional. It is by choice. In my case, I can agree to it as some of my sociological dealings have to involve understanding and patience. Being with friends with common likes, dislikes and disposition in life could mean smooth relationship, and that I think could come out a much more meaningful, healthy and deep bonding. I cannot remember now when and where exactly that my friends and I met each other for the first time.
What I have kept in mind was that we all have met at a street party jamming where Linkin’ Park songs were being performed by the artists that I forgot the name. We have learned instantly that this was the kind of songs that we admired the most. Though we have met initially by chance and not as planned, our succeeding meetings became more and more memorable as we chose to go out together as often as we could. We have gone out to shop, attending street parties, discos, going to arcade and even just eating out. We all want to wear jeans and sometimes love to wear blue shirts just like that even when in a supposedly closed and formal ambiance.
Purposely, we wanted to make a difference by making ourselves comfortable with the way we usually do. Of course, those common factors made us feel that we bind as a group of one true friendship. If those group actions performed by us and commonalities that we have agreed upon, verbally or not, could mean as mechanism or symbols, I can surely say that symbolic interactionism really evolved in our group to make us feel at ease whenever together. Perhaps because of our youthfulness, we never got into trouble of having to experience things like one of us would oppose what the majority has decided to do or to go. I guess, not even once. The reason could be our commonality which I know does not mean ‘ our similarity in general’ that brought us more closely with each other.
It must be called the functional analysis or the functionalism of each of us with regards to our relationship per se and the behavioural pattern of one could mean in accordance to our group as a whole. I cannot consider ourselves similar with one another as I believe that every one of us has our own individual personalities even though we are identified as one group. Moreover, I know that it is the commonality that made our individual differences formed the group that we called friendship. And while under the umbrella of our friendship, we learned how to develop gradually our rapport and camaraderie. Being a friendly person was not in fact my personality until such time that I got the chance to intermingle and be connected with people.
Actually, I have discovered my friendliness through interactions from time to time with the friends that I am discussing about. My friends and I have almost the same range of age. Well, I prefer not to tell my exact age but I believe that all of us belong in the age group called Generation Y. That is why we are on the same likeness especially when it comes to enjoyable moments. Of course we did not bear on the same date which makes our age differ still as well as our attitudes and personalities.
From this, we can view that due to our age differences, there are still conflicts that was inevitable to occur. To give an example is Jenny’s being bossy with Rob. Jenny, who was ten months older than me and more than a year and two months older to Rob, used to treat Rob as if Rob was her personal assistant. She used to make a demand to Rob which the latter often obey. Sometimes we teased them that Jenny is in love with him which made her very angry saying that Rob is not her ideal boyfriend material.
I wonder why and sometimes asked question like this: Would it be Jenny’s being bossy that made our friendship sometimes experience the conflict or Rob’s being too naive and kind to follow such orders, demands and commands from Jenny. I do not know. But as said in the conflict theory, it is by nature of a man that one could be treated as superior especially when the presence of someone who treat himself inferiorly. In this case, I do not want to say that Rob treated himself inferior being the youngest in our group. It could probably his kindness that triggered Jenny to act as his boss.
Furthermore, I know Rob has not anything against Jenny. Instead, I guess Rob was simply enjoying Jenny’s bossiness as he was once said before that Jenny is too beautiful to disregard and ignore. With regards to my sociological experience and the situations risen above, the conflict which involved only two of our friends seemed to be normal for us. However, as we have studied social theories, the relevance or perhaps the application from studying the context of sociology, I myself can now predict, generalize and understand human behavior especially to my friends who became my companions whatever difficulties we have. When making any relationship such as friendship or in any other kind, we hardly analyze difficult things just to cope up with it.
We sometimes tend to see these difficulties as problems. We only respond and correspond according to the motion of what were going on in our environment particularly in our mass society that we belong. As we grow old and as we became level-headed being well-educated persons, we then come up analyzing these difficulties, identify them as simple problems, and sometimes struggled in finding solutions for it. These past events that occurred in our relationship would surely affect our future but not in a negative aspect. Laughter and fun that we have shared would surely transcend those not so pretty cute incidents of Rob and Jenny. Those moments being with friends even amidst troubles were beyond price and worth keeping forever.
Moreso, learning from experience would surely be the best teacher of all. Thus, combining knowledge of sociology and experience as applying it to life would surely benefit me and my friends to triumph over social dilemma that might come in the future.
