I’ve had a friend a long time ago. Nice boy, plays the guitar, loves photography, and at the same time, he loves to draw. Draw people, things. We were quite close back then.

Then he moved. To a new school, new people, new life. Like expected, he changed. We no longer talked a lot. Though, I was in his top friends list for a while, then I was gone.

While we did talk, I tried out something I never tried before. I sketched. First I tried sketching a normal cup of coffee. Then it turned into a cafe. Then it turned into a whole street view. Though, I should mention it was all done using an art tablet hooked up to Macromedia Fireworks. I can’t say it was a perfect scene. But it was the most elaborate I’ve ever done.

Then I tried some thing a bit more daring… I sketched faces, on Adobe Photoshop CS2.

No, I’m not gonna say who’s that Chinaman. 

Point is, I tried drawing things like these again on Adobe. But I never found the ability to do it again.

Not sure if it’s cos I forgot the settings I need to do pencil sketches. Or that my free hand sketching’s pretty much suck by now.

But I noticed that I could draw when I was in good terms with the friend I mentioned. After he was gone, so was my drawing ability.

So, my question is. Do your friends influence what, and how you do in things that involve skill, like drawing, firing a gun, even baking a cake? Is there some kind of psychology at work that we don’t even know about it? If so, what triggers it? The craving to learn, driven by peer pressure?

When was the last time you did something that you weren’t really into, but you could do it with hardly any problems because there’s someone in your life who’s into it?