Friend or Foe, the Existential Dilemma
Have you ever found yourself questioning if someone is your friend?
How is someone you address as your friend supposed to be or not be?
Before you answer these for yourself, let me present my answer to you.
I have been there, where I have questioned friendships of people around me.
There have been multiple instances where my trust was broken or I was not aligned in values with a person I was calling my friend for years.
Or, we started off as good friend but grew apart — which is alright!
I have also been a part of the the generational facade where I wanted friends just for social standing.
If then, I was given a choice between the quantity or quality then I would have clearly chosen quantity because I did not know what quality meant.
I feel the part of this questioning should be;
Am I good friend? Or have the capacity to become one?
To be honest with you — I haven’t arrived at a concrete answer to all these questions, yet!
And, I don’t think there is a rule book as such.
But one thing that I know for certain is that;
A friend should be your well-wisher, anyone holding contrasting intent is NOT a friend
Though overtime, I have learnt to recognize patterns in people (also myself) to find an answer to this existential question;
Is he/she my true friend?
Before I begin, my honest rule?
I feel fortunate and consider someone a friend even if there is a tick on 3 out of these 7 patterns.
Because, hey — there is always room to develop something worthwhile.
1. No room for daunting judgement
People you call your friends leave absolutely no room for daunting judgement.
Of course, they would mock at you, make fun of you, your choices, decisions etc. (what else are true friends for? XP).
But never in a condescending way.
They would see it as their responsibility that you don’t feel out of place, judged, bad about yourself in their presence.
You would feel genuineness and the freedom to be the real YOU in the moment, with them.
2. Deep rooted intention to see you grow and do well in life
Take a pause and now think about people you call ‘family’ in your life.
These are the people who love you, right?!
They want to see you happy, right?!
How can you be happy? — when you grow and become and best version.
So, if someone is your true friend, they would really want to see you grow, learn, falter, move, become the best version of yourself and do well in life, even if that means BETTER that them.
I see people missing on this bit, yes there might be people who want to see you do well but how many of them want to see you do even better than them?
If you recall anyone, right now — stop right there, he/she is your TRUE friend.
3. Open hearts for acknowledgement & mistakes
I know for certain that a true friend is someone, who has empathetic ears to your concerns.
They acknowledge the way you feel and act.
Of course, they might correct you, show you perspective from the place of love and concern and never to prove a point or showcase their superiority.
They might disagree with whatever you say/believe but they would never make you feel any less for sharing your thoughts, feelings etc.
They know you, love you and have a wide room for you to make honest mistakes.
They have your back always.
4. Supportiveness & Loyalty
This is a debatable point; you would have a lot of supporters when things are going north.
But few questions to ask are –
- Who is there with you when things are going south?
- Who really wants to help you and pull you out of a situation?
- Who is rooting for you in rooms where you are absent?
If you can think of a few people, you are very lucky!
These people are your true friends, and they are making conscious choice everyday to be there for you and with you, just beside you.
No matter what.
OR come what may!
5. Sense of belongingness even in difficult moments
It could be a bit subjective because there is no one way to sense something.
There is no tangibility but if you do some reflection work, I am sure you could figure this one out.
We all have arguments with our dear ones, think about parents — we fight with them, but do they stop caring for us or doing things for us?
Or do we do that?
We still love them and want good for them, right?!
Friendships are like chosen, extended family.
Even in moments of fights, if you have a deep connection — you would feel belonged, cared for.
You would know that the person would not leave you hanging by the hook, alone.
It would just be like another moment of rupture and nurture.
6. Action matching words
Expression of love matters.
But you know the real secret?
It is always the expression backed by action which cracks the deal.
People who really love you, your true friends will never keep a count of how many times you called, how many times they called or gifts you exchanged.
It would not be transactional.
Efforts would be initiated from the place of love, care, and connection.
You would just feel it.
7. Truthfulness and authenticity
I saved the best one for the last, hehe. By best I also mean the most important one.
To help you understand rhetorically, answer these questions for yourself and you would know.
a. Are you your true authentic self with your true friends?
If No, think of the label ‘true friend’ again.
b. Is there a constant fear of losing these people if you share your views, share your opinions in disagreement?
If Yes, it is like to be in a cage — you can never be your true self, then.
c. Do you feel the pressure of proving your worth, your efforts, your friendship time and again?
If Yes, I am sorry to put it out — it is not worth it.
This was the list, there could be so many more additions to this list but for now this list works okay for me, personally.
On a similar note, we all lose a lot of friends not because someone is bad, or we are bad.
But because, we are all figuring things, growing, out growing each other.
In reality, we don’t need a lot of friends just one quality friend is enough!
As we have heard, “one true friend is worth a million acquaintances”
Also, do you recall the friendship story of my uncle?
If not — read here
He met his best friend after 30 years of age.
They have a lot of arguments, mockery but they stick together and never leave each other’s side, no matter what!
You see, true friendships are rare, pure but not impossible.
Who knows, you would meet your best friend tomorrow.
But, be sure to be a good friend first 😊
With love,
TS
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