Can People Change?

A friend (lets call her Rosie) and I were talking the other day about another mutual friend (lets call him Franklin) (whom she actually introduced me to), and it was soo interesting to see the different views we had on that one person. I really like Franklin and we relate on a quasi-intimate level between professional and friendship (and I admittedly have some fear and awe for him). We have these quasi-deep conversations but are pretty open and real with one another from my point-of-view. Now Rosie had a completely different experience with him, so she does not even like it when I talk about him. All their mutual experiences seem to be negative from her reaction to the mere sound of his name, either that or old friends are telling her things about him that puts him in a negative light. That being said, we were having a conversation about him and some of his beliefs and apparently I said something about it that Rosie totally disagreed with resulting in her mumbling some incoherent words under her breath. My response was simple "People can change." To which I was given "Yeah, and some traits are part of a person and will never change." In my mind at this point I'm thinking, "Whoa could this guy, who I've been hitting it off with professionally and socially, really have had that big of a negative impact on her and apparently some other people??"

All this to say really that its quite interesting how two different people can view another. And even how different one person could treat those same two people. It made me wonder again how people tick, what makes them do the things they do? Does he treat me one way because he sees ways that he can benefit from our relationship? And treat Rosie a different way because he didn't see how they could have profited from a beneficial relationship? It strikes me as strange that this could be the case, but not totally inconceivable.

Then it makes me wonder about the rest of the general population...do people only befriend people that they think they can benefit from? On some level I think that is true, whether the benefit is companionship, professional advancement, or "benefits". With my relationships though, as I think back I can recall some people that I "befriended" that I didn't benefit from, and to be honest, those were the hardest friendships I've ever been in.

I guess the idealist in me always hopes that people can change.