Friends Forever

Quote : We all need friends. We need someone in whose presence we can be truly ourselves without fear of criticism or rejection. By this acceptance, a friend frees us from the fear of being ourselves.

Rummaging through my drawers the other day, I chanced upon this article which I had cut out from The New Thrill magazine in 1981. It’s hard to imagine but I have kept this for almost 30 years.

It must have spoken to me ages ago and played a role on how I would view friendship. Reading it again after all these years, it struck me that this article seemed to answer certain questions E asked after I blogged about my friendship with Grace. It’s a bit long but I would like to share it with you…

Many of us may have wished, at one time or another, that all the people whom we have loved will reciprocate our affection or that our needs and those closest to us are compatible and that we can share our joys and problems freely and candidly.

But, unfortunately, friendship doesn’t work out that way, and people’s needs aren’t always the same, so it is only fair to say that we have often wished for more, or wished for something no one had to give, and in that we know we are not alone.

Some people become angry when they recollect moments they had to stand alone, and question the values they once put upon their friends who weren’t there when they needed them.

So it would be practical for us to realise this : that we don’t receive from a friend what we give him, we get what he has to give, and this is what we must not forget. A person can only give you what he has to give.

People are friends in spots. This may sound shocking but it is a fact. There are certain qualities that you would look for in a person you want to befriend and there are others with lesser qualities that you don’t want to have anything to do with at all and you must learn to be grateful for what there is for you and not be annoyed by what can never be.

Our society is full of different types of people with contrasting characters. And there are people who make good friends and bad acquaintances and people with whom one loves to banter but wouldn’t want to cry with.

And perhaps we have to learn which is which and that we don’t need a lot of people to play the game of life with if what we hunger for is a companion for our inner lives.

We must also realize that there are so many parts of us that have to communicate with parts of another person that we each need several people to unlock all the chambers of our heart.

And while we have been conditioned to hunger for the one person who gives us everything, it helps to accept that life doesn’t consist of total people. It consists of moments, moments that are gifts we can pick up and hang like pearls around our neck. But no one will hand them to us; we have to supply the string in order to hang the pearls around our neck.

There is a lot to be said for reduced expectations, and a lot to be said for accepting the limitations of friends.

Because once you understand that there is no love which assuages all hurt, it is as though you have walked all night in darkness and stumbled out again into the light. And after that, you are more contented and more easily pleased by life.

And when love results, be it for a minute, or for a week, you view it as a gift, as you would view the sun coming out in a cloudy sky, and you’re grateful for the moment, not angry that there are so few.

But, you may say, surely friendship is having someone in your camp, someone who is there when you need him no matter what.

We must face facts. We are all essentially alone, and sometimes, the people whom we love can make life tough and miserable for us. Sometimes, there is a communication breakdown and we cannot talk to them as much as we may try.

In human relationships, one only knows what one gives out, but never what is received, so it is possible that a friend’s prescription may not work on our problems. And problems arise when we tend to take things for granted. Without any appreciation period.

People’s perceptions are not the same, and so what often looks very clear to one person may not look as clear to another pair of eyes. Often, so much of what we see depends on where we’re standing when we look.

And it is also true that friends, even the very best, have a cutoff point, a point at which they must be excused to protect themselves or be alone by themselves, even if this means that they save themselves at our expense. And if we’re truly their friends, we should not feel bad about this, but be understanding and appreciate their need to be with themselves and respect their wish to be alone. If we can do that, then we’ve demonstrated the basic principle in which friends remain friends forever.

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