"Life Is Partly What We Make It, And Partly What It Is Made By The Friends We Choose"--Tennessee Williams

What is a friend? This is a question I asked many before writing this blog. I got varied answers. One person stated that a friend is one who will give his life for you. Another said that a friend looks past your faults and loves you regardless. Yet someone declared that a friend is there to guide and protect another. All of these statements made me realize that obviously a friend is something needed, but we all would agree that there are not enough of in the world.

The pure definition of a friend is one who is attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. In other words, a friend is one you know, like, and trust. Truly, we can like someone but do we accurately know them? Thus, can we trust them? Assuredly, we all have had a lot of ones that we considered friends, but they proved themselves contrarily. Oddly, is there any other characteristic of an individual that if a person is not complete, than they are the opposite. Think about it, if one is not your friend because of proven actions, than he becomes your enemy. There is no betweenness. No such thing as a frienenemy or an enefriend. They are either friend or foe.

The problem is that some very close to us are pretenders to friendship. They exist to bring subsequent heartbreak. But is that entirely their fault? True some people are insincere in their motives. Some will hurt others simply because they are not friends to themselves. And, most definitely, if one does not love himself, he cannot love someone else. But, on the opposite side of the spectrum, maybe we use the term "friend" too loosely, and we labeled them as a "friend" before we fully got to know of all of their traits. We have to have a period of trials of trust before we can call one a friend in the truest sense. Trials of trust? Yes, we give a little of ourselves and then they give a little of themselves. Maybe we tell them something personal, and depending upon how they handle that, we tell them more. As trust is developed, we may give them several more tidbits. Pretty soon they may be privy to bountiful amounts of information about us, and we about them. This person becomes our confidant, our adviser, our companion, our friend. Obviously, more time should be spent at the onset during the trials of trust. If more time is spent at this phase, we might be able to find out that someone is not going to be there for us in the more difficult times.

Too often we like a person for whatever reason and way too soon begin an instant friendship. We hurriedly skip all of the steps of the trials of trust and move them from stranger to friend in the blink of an eye. Maybe they had a similar background, maybe they are charismatic, or maybe they think along the same lines we do. But, there is no such thing as friend at first sight. What we then have is someone knowing too much who will eventually use that knowledge to do us harm. Then they become the type of friend Oscar Wilde was speaking of when he said “a friend is one who will stab you in the front”.

In contrast, some have good intentions in a relationship. Maybe it begins with one being sincere, but we expect more out of a person than they can give. We have to accept their faults and hope that they accept ours. Bernard Meltzer said “a true friend is someone who thinks you are a good egg even though he knows you are slightly cracked.” We must be good friends ourselves and become accepting of others. Maybe we know our friend has a selfish trait. Well, we have to accept that and not cut him off from our bosom at the next sign of selfishness. Possibly, our friend suffers with listening. The next time we begin to tell her about our boss' actions at the office that bothers us to no end, and she immediately cuts us off to tell us about a new song she heard on the radio or this brand new blouse she saw at Macy's, it might not be time to send her to the no-friend zone. She is just not centered. Possibly our friend is not to the same place in the relationship as we are. If this is the case, we should explain our concerns to our friend and allow them time to ameliorate.


True enough, a friend might be one we know, like, and trust, but that does not make him perfect. Expect mistakes and missteps. But, be sure that before you give someone your heart and name him your friend, he is worthy of bearing the name.