“Spune-mi cu cine te insotesti ca sa-ti spun cine esti”

 “Tell me who your company is and I will tell you who you are”

The informant who told me this proverb was born and raised in Romania until she came to high school in the US. Given the fact that she is a native Romanian, she knows a lot about the customs and traditions of the country, especially due to her large family, and the setting she grew up in from an early age.

The informant remembers hearing her grandmother say this proverb a lot during her childhood. It essentially means that your friends, the circle of people you interact with, are a mirror of yourself, and that you can learn a lot about the person in question by finding out about their friends. This rings true in many ways. The people you keep around you are people you like, they share your views, your values, your opinions to a great degree. Therefore, expecting to find information about someone by knowing the traits and characteristics of his/her friends, is often very helpful. There are times when someone’s friends are the complete opposite of who they are, and that’s why they like to keep them around, but even at this level there are bound to be some fundamental values shared by both of you. Friendship is based on shared interests, therefore, this proverb draws on a true fact of chemistry and relationships between people.