Friendship

Who is a friend? Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more persons. The term "friend" connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem and affection along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other. Their tastes will usually (but need not necessarily) be similar (eg. Japanese food) and they may enjoy common activities (eg. singing at KTV sessions). They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice (eg. how to reduce under-eye bags) and the sharing of hardship (eg. staying back at work to help finalise a document).

A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors (eg. I help you to fix your PSP (ie. Playstation Portable) and you help me to buy rosebud leaves).

Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not harm them.

Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis:-

(a) the tendency to desire what is best for the other (eg. encouraging the other to upgrade himself/herself through further education);

(b) sympathy and empathy;

(c) honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one's counterpart or when unpleasant information has come to the knowledge of one that relates to the other (comment: it is not easy to weigh whether to inform the other about unpleasant information concerning the other. On the one hand, we are loathe to upset the other party. On the other hand, it is imperative that the other party be aware about what has happened);

(d) mutual understanding.

Sometimes people are not what they seem. They may appear nice to you but behind your back, the knife that they use to stab you is longer than a fencing sword. It is disheartening to know that there are such people in this world. Why should we go about life being cynical and distrusting others?

At the end of the day, whilst it is good to be on our guard, sometimes we should just let go. If we are always watching our backs for hypocrites and people who cannot wait to trample us on the ground while calling themselves our "friend", our lives will be very unhappy as we can never see the beauty in the world around us.

The world is full of wonderful stories of how two people of different backgrounds can end up as friends, eg:-
(a) persons of different cast;
(b) persons of different skin colour;
(c) persons of different positions in a company;
(d) persons of different financial background;
(e) persons of different character.

It is not always that if, for example, two persons of different financial background are friends, one is necessarily simply making use of the other. Life is strange. You never know when the person whom you least expect to "click with" ends up being your friend.

(source: Wikipedia and my own two cents' worth)