What Is a Friend?

Have you ever thought about that? You probably never give it a thought and just take it for granted. I used to do that myself until I learned the hard way that sometimes friends are not everything we thought they were.

We begin life as children and meet many different kinds of people, some who become our friends and some just acquaintenances along the way. We learn early in life that not everyone we meet in life will be the same ones with whom we will share our lifetime memories. In fact, they may not even be the same ones who will share our high school or college memories. They become our pals, our buddies, and our confidantes in our growing years, but they do not necessarily become our lifetime friends.
As you mature over the years, you will find yourself meeting many different people, and you won’t like all of them nor will you have things in common with every single one of them. What you need to learn early in your life is how to recognize those who are truly your friends and learn to distinguish them from those who just pretend to be your friend. Unfortunately I didn’t learn some of these things myself until a few years ago, but I hope by sharing these experiences with you I can save you some of the pain and heartache I suffered after finding the truth. I have listed below for you some of the things that will help you recognize the difference between a true friend and someone who is either just an acquaintance or even using you for their own selfish purpose.

· A true friend won’t expect you to change into something you are not.

· A true friend won’t expect you to take their side even if they are wrong.

· A true friend will accept you for what you are and care about you in spite of any faults you may have.

· A true friend will love and care about you even when you may not agree about every single thing.

· A true friend will not force you to do something you know is wrong and expect you to take the blame for it.

· A true friend will let you be yourself and share both the good and bad times with you.

· A true friend will be there when you are sad or happy, and they will share both of those times with you because that’s what friends do.

· A true friend will allow you to do the same things you did before you met and want to share with you some of those experiences and confidences.

The hardest thing I have found in a friendship is caring about someone dearly while sitting back and watching that very friend cause hurt to another friend. What do you do? The problem is many times you are expected to choose, and that can be the hardest thing in the world to do. I wish I could say I never had to make that decision, but it would not be honest. It hurt deeply at first, but I learned to live with it by telling myself a true friend would not expect me to dislike another person simply because things had been done to hurt them. As much as you would like to be able to prevent your friends from being hurt, it just isn’t realistic, and it’s unrealistic of someone else to expect you to take sides. If we did that with all of our friends, we would find ourselves changing friends each and every single day because there will always be someone doing something to hurt another person either accidentally or deliberately, that is just part of life. On the other hand, there will always be people you dislike for one reason or another, and that person may be friends with your best friend in the world, but don’t be rude enough to expect a friend to drop another friend simply because you dislike that person. As a true friend, you will accept other friendships and offer your friend a compromise rather than an ultimatum. In other words, don’t tell your friend, “I won’t come to the party if she is there”, bur rather something like, “You know I don’t like her, but I will be civil to her for you as long as you don’t try to force us to talk.” By doing this you are telling your friend you are mature and a true friend. You have agreed to still see her even though you don’t like another friend she has, and as a result you have learned a very valuable lesson in life, that of compromise.

In essence what you want to remember is you are going to meet many different types of people in your life, and your friends are not always going to like each other. Those who are your true friends are those who accept you for what you are and expect you to do the same for them. The true friends are those who will stand beside you no matter what happens without expecting anything in return. Those friends are the ones who will be your shelter when you are cold, a nursemaid when you are sick, a helping hand when you need it, and a shoulder for you to cry on. They will love you as only a friend can do and will give up a truly special evening if they are needed. Remember, though, you must also be the same kind of friend because to FIND a true friend, you must BE a true friend. Sometimes that may be something as unforeseen as finding a friend you haven’t seen since high school like I did, or something as simple as meeting someone with whom you immediately bond. Whatever your special circumstances remember as my daughters were taught in Girl Scouts: “Make new friends but keep the old for one is silver the other gold”. I would like to attribute that to the proper author, but I don’t know who it is, so I’ll just leave it as a quote from a very brilliant person.

In closing let me say to each of you that you may not understand what I have tried to convey to you right now, but what you should do is save this article and reread it on the first day of school every year or on your birthday. Each time you read it as you grow older, it will make more sense to you, and you will find yourself understanding my words and beginning to put them to use in your every day life. Only by doing this will you become the kind of friend you need to be because seeing is becoming, and that is really what you want to do.

A Short Essay by
Brenda Coxe
©2003