Friendship

My best friend, who now lives out of state, was visiting for the weekend recently, and since then, due to both his presence, some conversations of that weekend, and other prior conversations w/ various people that I've had recently, this is something I've been working through a bit in my head as of late.

Throughout this post, please keep in mind that, high school being my main place of experience with this, a lot of what I refer to is with that in mind, I'm not sure how much that will actually noticeably affect this, but just in case, that's where I'd expect my views to be placed.

Friendship is something that the vast majority of us depend on to get us through the day, at least to some extent, but I'm sure there are plenty of us who take various friendships we have for granted, which can lead to some painful situations if you're not careful.

We're all probably quite familiar with having acquaintances, those people whose names we know that we may see frequently, but we never take the time to get to know them. The majority of people probably have a large amount of acquaintances, but there are very few within that number whom they will ever take the time to get to know well enough to consider them a true friend. If our acquaintances come and go, we normally aren't affected very much. We may feel a slight disappointment at not having taken the time to get to know them better, but all in all, we can move on very quickly as that classmate or coworker we never spent much time with moves on to another place in their life. Occasionally, we'll call upon an acquaintance for a small favor, help with a little problem, a ride home due to car trouble, etc., but the majority of the time no words are exchanged aside from the occasional greeting or brief small talk when your paths coincide.

A step above this is the casual friendship, which may not be very much more than an acquaintance was, to be honest. You may know a bit more about the person and converse with them more due to being nearer to them more often, but in the end, if something were to happen and this friendship had to be ended, it wouldn't be unbearable and you could easily ((depending on what kind of person you are, I suppose)) move on. Again though, this type of friendship isn't really going to have much strength to it in most cases, but it does have much more potential to become a stronger friendship than does a mere acquaintance.

From here we move on to those people whom you would most likely be referring to if you used the phrase "my friends". They're the people you hang out with, share more common interests with, and all in all you take a larger interest in what's going on in their personal life, whereas with the previous two examples you may know very little about their personal or home life at all. Losing one of these people is almost always a pain, but depending on the circumstances it can be easy to deal with, especially with modern day's simple and quick communication via email and cell phones and whatnot.

Among your group of friends, there will almost always be those special few people with whom you have the strongest bonds, your "best friends". In my personal experience, I've divided this group into two parts, but we'll get to that momentarily. It is with your best friends that you share more of your personal struggles and pains with, and expect them to be genuinely sympathetic to them. You're more likely to be "attached at the hip" with these people, and losing contact with them for only a few days can make you feel as if you've gone through a significant loss. To lose one of them entirely is detrimental in a lot of cases.

Now, moving onto more of what I actually intended to discuss in this post: the two separate groups of "best friends"--those you are tight with and those you are close to.

The first group are the ones that everyone will know are your friends. You're seen with them almost all the time, and they are the people that really know you and don't just know the you that most people see. They see the talker behind the taciturn, the wounded behind the smiles, and so on. You enjoy hanging out with them often, and they've probably seen you at your best and worst. You're all willing to go out of your way for each other, but are still good enough friends that you can just say 'no' to each other and have it not hurt anything. In my experience, these are the people I can be a complete idiot around; I'm probably more rude to them than anyone else, because they know I'm rarely serious with my insults towards them. Whereas most people would believe me to be a quiet, reserved person, which I often am, these people have seen me at my craziest points and know them well. At the lunch table, we're always together, and pretty much anywhere else. Most of us know out way around each others homes as if they were out own. We share myriads of memories and inside jokes that mean absolutely nothing to anyone else. Without these people, life would be so much more difficult to bear.

Your bonds with the people in the second group, however, may not be so salient. Oftentimes, the people you are closest too will be within your group of tight friends, but they can just as easily be someone else entirely. It is these people that you can say anything, no matter how deep or dark the secret, it's something you can tell them. They're the ones who know how you really feel about things, sometimes even before you do. While you will still have the more meaningless and mundane conversations, with these people the topics can shift to more serious things much more quickly, and will stay there long into the night. These conversations don't always have to be worded, however, and it's likely you can hear more from each other in the silences of what's left unsaid than in anything else. You're complete trust can lie with these people, not only in reference to secrets and the like, but with everything else as well. You trust them with not only your life, but with the lives of those you care most about as well, and, heaven forbid, you can trust them with the taking of your life as well. As much as it is possible, it would be fight together, die together, but should the worst arise, you can be confident that they will be able to do what's necessary. That may sound unusual to some of you, but I trust my closest friends like that, so that if I were to be about to do something horrible, or to harm someone that either or both of us cared deeply about, or anything else along these lines, I can be certain that they would have the strength and love to stop me, no matter the cost. Their devotion is to the friend, not to the friendship.

On the subject of that last sentence: this is an often unseen but important piece of a friendship, for when it comes down to the worst, this is what can drastically change the outcome of things. For example: let's say there are two friends, and one is about to make a decision in their life that will negatively affect them in a big way. The person who is dedicated to the friendship may express some disapproval of the decision, but ultimately will accept whatever their friend decides for the sake of maintaining their friendship. On the other hand, a person who is devoted to their friend will stop at no end to convince the one making the wrong decision to change their mind, even to the point on causing intense strife between the two of them. In the end, the friendship may be severely damaged, and perhaps will never fully recover, but the love between the friends, especially from the one not making the wrong decision, will likely remain.

In the latter of the types of friendships I've discussed, the friendship has become more of a relationship than anything. Where I draw the very blurry line is in the breaking down of the word relationship. Relationship is obviously close to the word relative, which indicates a connection through family or blood, which one would assume would make for a much tighter bond. It is when a friendship grows into a bond of this magnitude that I would then begin to call it a relationship instead. When a close relationship is formed with someone of the opposite gender, that is when you are likely to become more romantically attached to the person, although it does not mean that that has to happen.


All this being said, how necessary is friendship in the end? Most would say it is undeniably necessary, but I beg to differ. Despite the many benefits of it, as with anything else, there are downsides to friendships, especially close relationships, that may cause some to want to steer away from them.

Having good friendships and relationships makes getting through the rough times of life easier, since you then have others to lean on for support when you feel you can't go on, but in turn, you must be ready to support them through times just as bad if not far worse than what you have experienced yourself. For some people, the trials of supporting another may result in the supporter being brought down, sometimes dragging the one in need of support even farther down as well. This can be detrimental to the emotional, spiritual, and physical health of all that are involved. However, when close friendships are avoided, there is no call to support another in this manner, and thus, as long as you can withstand your trials without the aid of another person, you can be fine, but there are a select few who can do this without harsh penalty. When all is said and done, friendships of some sort probably are a necessity to life, but if that is incorrect, then they are at the very least a wondrous luxury.