There are friends from high school, the kind that has known me more than half of my life. They had shaped the basic structure of my habits. Their personality and mine have been merged, and hidden inside of my consciousness. I would say “I knew it! You are from the same high school just like me!” because I can feel that strange hint from my school written on their forehead. When we are grown up, some people changed and it’s just too hard to stay the same even if we still have that weird hint in our consciousness. It is painful to accept this as the truth.

Then there are friends from my high school that I didn't talk much back then, but when we meet again 10 years later, there are some weird strings connected us together like we have known each other since 10 years old, which is true, but it had been just their faces that I had known.

There are friends from college, the kind that I have spent so much time together. They were with me when I really had freedom for the first time. They were with me when I failed and marked that failure on my backbone. I discovered myself and the world together with them. They have become another part of my soul. The bond is getting more complicated. There will be some life goals or principle that one day our path would be overlapped, but no, we are not walking along after graduated.

There are friend from the workplace, the kind that I used to categorize them as just coworkers. But when you spent 9 hours on 5 days a week, and some period of time it was more, for years together, I feel like I fought a war with them, and they were a fine squad to work with. They know me too much to be just coworkers. I thought I would walk away freely from the company before I realized I have compassion for them. When I feel their joy and sadness like this, it’s too cold to not count them as friends.

There are friends from the internet, the kind that I introduced myself from many series of 140 characters, or 100 to 10k words that they occasionally post on their blogs. I see their soul through words on electronic devices. Some of them become one of my closest friends and I haven’t met them in person yet. I once said to them, “I’m not addicted to social network, I addicted to them.”

All of them are friends. They are not classmates. They are not coworkers. They are not my followers. They are my friends, just friends.