What is Friendship?

I always think what friendship is. Is friendship just a matter of relationship between someone with another or others? Is friendship merely about the closeness of two people or more who share their lives together? Is friendship referring to the quality of how we know someone or some people and the quantity of how we spend your time with them? Well, everyone has his own idea about friendship is. Friendship is a relationship which involves friends as its doers. So, what a friend really means to us? A person says a friend is someone to spend time with and to do things with. Another says a friend is someone we turn to in times of need and someone we want to share our successes with. Some say a friend is someone we laugh with and someone we cry with. Others say a friend is someone who will be there for us. Sometimes we just want our friend to be there and not say a single word or do a single thing. We just want them to be a good listener to our thought, problems and sharing. Sometimes we desperately need advice and physical support from our friends. The most important thing in any friendship is TRUST.

Who can be our friends? We can find friendship in with our family members and our significant others. Our Mom and Dad can be our friends from whom we ask for advice and support. Our brothers and sisters can be our friends with whom we can share their stuff and good companion for hanging out. But, most of our friendships are with people our same age and same sex. There are more friendships between boys and girls these days. It is also important to have friends who are older or younger than us, so we can broaden our perspectives, learn things we might not have otherwise, and not get stuck in patterns because they are comfortable or safe. It’s good to have friends who bring you new and different ways of looking at the world.

Here are some ideas about friendship:

- Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. (George Washington)

- I have learned that to have a good friend is the purest of all God’s gifts, for it is a love that has no exchange of payment. (Frances Farmer)

- Friends are there to defend us, to support us and to challenge us. I value my friends because they have stuck up for me when others have tried to hurt me, and they have bolstered my self-esteem when I was feeling insecure. I especially love my friends because they hold a mirror up to me and make me look at parts of myself that I sometimes don’t want to face. That’s what a real friend does: helps you to see who you are and maybe even helps you to change and become a better person. This kind of intimacy is hard to achieve. It takes a lot of honesty and willingness from both people, and a lot of trust. The quality of a friendship depends entirely on the quality of commitment and the quality of love that two friends develop over a lifetime. Friendship, like life, are a journey, something you struggle for, something that keeps changing and growing, and something that unfolds and takes shape as you live it. (Collin Mortensen)

So, guys… How about you? What a friend means to you? Let’s share out ideas of what a friend is! You may even share you experience of friendship.