Friends for life?

The great iconic rock band Queen once proclaimed in a jolly ditty of a song that “Friends will be friends - right till the end”. They obviously hadn’t banked on today’s get up and go society and another handy survey, this time the BT commissioned Auto Update Friendship Survey - whatever that is.

This new survey revealed that the under-30s were mostly likely to have friendships that only last for around five years or less. The main reason for this was cited as moving house, changing jobs and new romances. However, the older the survey respondent was, the less likely it was that a friendship would fade. Also, 20% of the respondents said that family members made up the largest proportion of their friends and, although people wanted to keep friendships alive, they felt guilty about getting back in contact after a few months.

Does this sound all too familiar? Well it certainly does to me. Even in the super fast electronic age of the e-mail and the SMS, with friends scattered all over the world or settling down into relations, it’s all too easy to loose contact as everyone carries on with their busy lives - or they've decided to ignore you because you forget to send them a Christmas card.

Still, you may wonder what on earth this has to do with Match.com. Well, in the on-line world of dating, once you’ve been classed as simply being “friendship material” you’re very lucky if your newly acquired friendship last five days - let alone five years.