Friendships

One of the most complex things in life that all living creatures have to deal with are relationships. It seems though that humans, Homo sapien sapiens have the most complex type of relationships that are on this planet. The one type of relationship that is most fascinating to me though is the friendship. 

There are a multitude of sayings and phrases that relate to friendship but none of them fully grasp the idea perfectly because each person looks at the bond differently. I may view a friendship to be a relationship that takes place between two people that are not related and create a bond that last a life time that does not have any type of intimacy, like dating. Whereas there are people who view friendship to have no boundaries at all. 

As defined by Dictionary.com Friendship

-noun

1.the state of being a friend; association as friends: to value a person's friendship.

2.a friendly relation or intimacy.

3.friendly feeling or disposition.

The issue at hand for most people is not defining a friendship but classifying the relationship into the proper categories. For me the first main category that a relationship is placed in is the "Reason, Season or Lifetime". A very common idea that has been passed around in chain mail through the years or the analogy of friendship being related to a tree. 

A problem that often comes up is the drift or the issue of there being time apart but in fact that is a good thing at times. See when people think of the saying "Time apart makes the heart grow founder", they often limit that to dating type relationships but in fact it has to do with all relationship types. When to people grow apart is allows for one of two things to happen and only one of two. There is the possibility that it shows that the friendship was not strong enough to begin with and that their relationship was only meant to last for a season or reason. Whereas there is the other case that it will show that the relationship is strong enough to withstand the distance and trials of time. These type of relationships are called "Lifetime" relationships. They last for that persons who life unless something very trying comes up that the relationship just cannot withstand.

When picking friends do not pick people the only compliment you in a way that you need but pick people that are there for you and care about you inside and out. Look for the person that barely knows you but can read you like a book and not care how you take it. Pick the person who is always honest with you but knows how to say so that you feelings are not completely crushed by the truth.  In life you must know who is really your friend because they want to be there FOR you and who is your friend because they want to use, manipulate or gain something FROM you. It is very hard but over time you will learn the difference and sometimes you will be blind sided but in the end you will come out with a hand full of friends that you love and they love you just the same or even more.