Friends - II

The comment:

Thinker, Good, though provoking post. I am not sure which of the affected parties you feel yourself as representing, if at all. But I am afraid, I must disgree with quite a few things here.

-- Friends are somebody you can be cool with.
o Friends are people with whom you can be what you want to be - at any given time - cool, moody, playful, argumentative, sad, happy. You do not have the right to hurt your friends, or be abusive to them. If you can be yourself without doing so, it should be alright.

-- There are no expectations, no hard feelings etc.
o There should definitely be no hard feelings, specially about petty matters like not returning a call or mail. But you can, and should have, expectations. If you do not have any expectations, you cannot really care about a person. Of course, you should not have unrealistic expectations, which are totally selfish.

-- What happens when a friend always dumps all the negativities on you
o Your friend is probably suffering from some problem - which are hogging all his or her concious mind. You can try to help your friend. But if this becomes a constant habit, you should not also feel obliged to take it all. Whenever obligation comes into picture, genuine concern goes away. One should be true to his or her friends, but the ultimate responsibility of a person is to be true to self.

-- Isn’t friends supposed to be cool – who have moderate or no expectations? Understand that there may be better things happening in your life, keeping you occupied?
o As I said, I think that friends should have expectations from each other. A total lack of it, to me, represents the end of affection between friends, a loss of the camerediere they once shared. At times there may be things in your life that will keep you completely occupied for some time. Friends should of course understand that, and should not feel dejected. But on the other hand, if you have some happy event in your life, you should make your friends feel a part of your happiness.

I think I should stop here, though there still are a lot of things to say on this topic.

PS: Did I do too much of preaching ?


The Reply:

No this is not too much of preaching.See in friendship there has to be some sort of attachement. But, excess of it spoils the show. Excess of anything is bad.

Well the point is, that friends should not feel dejected. What matters is, that you are there for your friend and your friend is there for you when needed; this includes happy times and sad times both.