Best friends to be exact.
Best friends are the ones whom you could hang out with all day long, every day, monthly, bi-monthly, etc and despite the long period of not being able to see one another, it still seems like we have met yesterday. However, when friendship started at the initial stage, there are just some things that are left unspoken and some of us may have understood what it was, but no all does. Maybe, I should give a lecture about it today, right here, right now.
Yes, the fundamentals of a friendship, not just any regular friendship, but a friendship that will last forever and ever, maybe I’m a little too exaggerating, perhaps to the next half of your life.
1. RESPECT
The utmost and foremost the most important aspect in a friendship. Just like completing a project, you should always lay the ground rules first and like I say, rules may be rules, they may be broken but still, obliging to these rules is truly important is keeping peace, same goes to friendship. We should always respect one another, in terms of behaviour, and significantly, your friend’s choices and decisions. Friends are always there to provide you with their own opinion but as we grow older, mature and wiser, we tend to know the consequences of our own decisions, be it good or bad and unlike when we are young, friends’ opinion would be one of the deciding factor when making our choices. Therefore, we should always respect our friend’s choice be it good or bad, right or wrong, and since they have made the decision, we should respect their personal choice and be there for them, should anything goes wrong or when they have to face the consequences.
Friends should always be there for one another despite all odds. AM I RIGHT?
2. 24 HOURS AVAILABILITY
This isn’t any ordinary or regular friendship but rather what best friends do which is to provide an exclusive 24 hours availability to their friends to the extend where they may be just 8 digits away (SG Number). Be it physically, mentally, or emotionally, friends should always be there for another, to help each other and to be each another’s companion while curing boredom. In special and more unique situations where you may feel extremely uncomfortable or have at extreme dislike in a setting, but if your friends need you there, you should be there too, always there for them no matter how much you hate it. I guess it doesn’t kills to feel uncomfortable and awful in the setting that you detest than to risk a friend’s safety and well-being right?
Perhaps you might also argue back that since it’s his/her decision, why can’t he/she respect mine as well? Well, friendship is all about give and take, if you need him/her today, he/she may need you back someday as well, who knows? You would never know…
3. EMPATHY
Sympathy and Empathy, they may sound the same but they are two total different thing. Ironically, friends would usually sympathise one another than to feel empathetic for them, which is absolutely not right. Empathy comes with understanding and a matured thinking to be able to feel empathetic for the other party. It’s about putting yourself in your friend’s shoes, in the same setting and faced with the same situation, how would you react? How would you respond? And how would you feel? Sympathising for your friend’s may degrade your friend’s status especially when they are down or in the downhill of their life, in fact they may feel that you are on the upper-hand and is incomparable to you. Well, it does reflect badly on the friendship and hence, it is important to totally and completely put yourself in your friend’s shoes to be a true good friend.
I know this post may be slightly lengthy and wordy but I shall end this off real quickly.
It may be easy for friendship to start, but for it to last, it requires plenty of dedication and patience and alot of give and take, quality and quantity shouldn’t be used as a measuring tool or any form of measurement to gauge the benefits that you reap from it. Then, it won’t be called friendship anymore, it would be more of a transaction, a business deal. However, in the modern society pertaining to SIngapore, majority treats friendships as a form of business deal, how friends can help you gain this gain that and seeing such things happen, it’s just saddening….
T H E D R E A M E R 