I
believe everyone in this world wants to have friends. That has become our basic
instinct as a social being. Having a friend or maybe lots of friends can
refrain us from feeling lonely because they are constantly there for us. It can
also make us feel more content, since by being in a group of friends make us
feel like we belong somewhere and not completely alone. For me, my reason to have
friends is to have a companion. I have never liked to be alone, and if I’m in a
room full of people I do not know, I will get nervous and feel out of place.
However, when I’m with at least a friend, I will feel more at ease and
therefore less nervous. Also, when we have someone who has same interest with
us, we can talk for hours and never run out of thing to say.
When we look for a friend, of
course there are things that we deem need to be considered. The article ‘The
Friendship Bond’, refers to questionnaire that says that people do not look for
friends based on their race, sexual preference, religion, and ethnic
background. They look for loyal, honest, supportive, and understanding people,
instead. That is the same for me. I am not a type of person who can approach
people very easily and I rarely speak to strangers, I am the listener type of
person. Therefore, I look for someone who is more talkative and outgoing than
me to be my friends. I do not really mind who I get to befriend with, but when
it comes to best friends, I am quite picky. I prefer to have few very close
best friends than to have tons of not-so-close friends. For me, the most
important thing in friendship is trust, because what make friends close are the
secrets they shared together. We feel more attached to people we shared secrets
with because we know that they trust us enough to know their private life.
Also, by revealing our secrets and private life, we can be more comfortable and
not afraid to get judged by them, making us braver to act like ourselves. There
can be no friendship if one keeps hiding something from the others, because
they would think that she or he does not trust them enough to tell them their
secrets.
Some people say that those who
always act differently around different people are fake or two faced. I do not
agree with this. Acting differently around different people does not mean that
we are fake; it is just that we have different comfort zones that differ from
each person. For example, I cannot act careless and crazy in front of people I
just know like how I do to my close friend, I am not comfortable enough to do
that. Also, it is not right to sing at the top of my lungs when I am with
someone who older than me, that is not polite. I cannot spazz about my favorite
singer to people who are not even interested in their music; it would be
annoying for her and I. That does not mean I am hiding part of myself from them,
which just mean I am not comfortable enough to reveal all of myself to them.
From Parlee’s text
and my personal experience, people seem to value their friendship so much. That
is highly understandable for me. Friends are the closest people to us,
sometimes even closer from our own families. Why is that? I think the answer
varies for each individual, since friendship is a unique thing. Some says
friends are important because they have spent a lot of time with them and knew
them for years, such as childhood friends. Not everyone can maintain their
friendship with their childhood friends, because people change, and sometimes
it is hard to maintain relationship with someone so different from what we used
to know. Therefore, those who are still close to their childhood friends are so
lucky. Mine went to a school outside the city when we were in elementary
school, so we cannot help but grew apart and I find it hard to get close to her
again. Besides the first reason, some people also think that it is nice to be
surrounded by people that care for us and listen to our problems. There are
times when we feel like we just need to vent and let out our frustration, or
simply talk about it. If we look at it from psychological standpoint, it can
help to keep us sane, because those who do not have someone to talk to and
keeping their problems to themselves are easier to fall into depression. As
strong as we think we are, we would never be able to solve and face our
problems alone, so it is better to have someone to talk to or to help us face
our problems.
That leads us to my next discussions, which are activities
in friendship. As what has already stated by Parlee, the main thing that
friends do is intimate talk. Like I said earlier, when friends share secrets
and talk about personal things, they would get closer. Moreover if our friend
can relate to our problems and insecurities, that can make their bond stronger
and make them more confident, since they know that they are not the only person
with that problems or feelings. There are a lot of things we can do with or for
our friends, from simple things like playing games, watch movies, and having a
vacation, to things like asking for a help, share our opinions and thoughts on
things, and many other. In addition, there are also things that we should not
do with or to our friends, such as talk behind their back, betray their trust,
talk about their secrets to other people, and worst, befriending them just to
use them for your own needs. It really hurts when the person you think was your
friend turns his or her back on you, when all the trust that we have given them
is betrayed. I have experienced something similar to this, when my friend bad
mouth me and talk behind my back. I got really angry and hurt at that time and
I did not talk to her for weeks. Luckily, it was just a misunderstanding and
she came to apologize to me. Even though it took some times to be back to how
we used to before the fight, we got close again eventually and that event makes
our friendship even closer.
In conclusion, I think
friendship is a really amazing and indescribable thing. It cannot be defined,
because the definition of friendship is different, depending on the person
itself. But one thing for sure, friends are the person closest to you aside
from your family, so close you can finish their sentence and know what they are
thinking just by the their expression, someone you can trust with all your
secrets and insecurities, and someone who would not judge you no matter what
you do, but at the same time are not afraid to scold you when you are wrong.
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