all of us seem to have different tolerance capacity towards different people? most of us tend to be more tolerant towards outsiders, or should i say to those whom we are less familiar with or close to. i think its probably because of the uncertainty or lack of sufficient confidence in us to gauge the personality and possible reactions of them. in fact, the closer we are to another person, the more we expect out of him/her in terms of understanding whatever we are doing.

the first step to understanding another person is therefore largely dependent on whether both are on the right frequency. and this, in turn depends on the personality of both. in order to become closer, we need trust and for trust, there must be a certain level of knowledge and ability to roughly gauge the person's thinkings and views even before they are expressed. but more importantly, the person must have possessed a comforable frequency which we think we can tune in to most of the times. i guess this is what EQ is about... but this is not what's most important.

i believe fate is. cos it will be seriously hard to find people with similar frequency to us in this not too big yet not-small-either-earth. then both have to dare to take the 1st step, trust, wiling to put in effort in friendship and finally there must be a right timing for some events to happen such that both can go through together to strengthen the bond and eventually have some hurdles appearing so we know what to react in future when similar scenarios surface. (see, i don't really believe in smooth journeys without ups and downs because once there is one, we will not know how to face it.)

well, i guess that's probably why its getting harder to get a good friend as you grow older... people just learn to be more protective of themselves and trust less easily. haiz...