Birds of a Feather Flock Together

The saying Birds of a Feather Flock Together brings on the same level a habit found both in the animal world and in the life of people in our society, and it means that people who are similar to each other often spend time together, go to the same places and do the same things together, exactly as birds do, but not all of the birds, only those “of a feather.” Often we hear people say “Those guys work at the same company and go to the same bars. They do everything together.”

            It is a way of expressing the friendship among people, the fact that only those persons who have similar tastes and styles easily are around each other. It is because they like the same things that they are together, exactly in the same way as birds of the same kind are on the same line.

            When people don`t share the same interest, the same opinions or beliefs, or they have very different points of view which lead rather to conflict than to understanding, they separate, they follow different roads, trying to find people similar to them, trying to find their “species.”

             The “feather” may represent the symbol of a particular group of people, the emblem, the image under which they get together, those particularities that makes them unique, or at least different from the others. The “flag” which helps them to identify easily. The “feather” of religion divides and unites in the same time men and women who share the same values, the same customs or habits, the same rituals, the same philosophy, the same beliefs,  and they “flock” in the same group. The “feather” of politics does the same thing, the “feather” of ethnicity, of sexual orientation, of wealth or any other characteristic that it is important for someone.

             The family is a very good example of how this proverb reflects the reality of our lives, the way the husband and the wife have things in common, love the same things, share between them, protect each other and their children, and in time even resemble physically copying the way they smile, the way they talk or react, and from the beginning to the end the fact that they are “of a feather” keeps them together.