Friendship - Part I

"If you want to go fast, go alone. 

But if you want to go far, go with others"

Two friends walking together. Photo: iStock

My most daunting concern for some time now is trying to understand this type of relationship, its benefits and effects on life. Addressing it in this article, I want to begin by asking “who is a friend?” “Why a friend?” “Are we friends or just acquaintance?”

Friendship simply means being friends or companions. The meaning really sounds simple and does not require any logical thinking. Nevertheless, the central word needs a sober understanding. It isn’t flowers on the street to plug easily or pick like marbles at the bank of a river.

The American-Canadian dictionary of contemporary English says that a person other than a family member, spouse or lover whose company one enjoys and towards whom one feels affection is a friend. It goes on further that a friend is an associate who provides assistance, backups or supports something. Several dictionaries and encyclopedia have myriads of information on this kind of union. Many philosophers and psychologists from their different perspective of thinking have different models to defining friendship and convincingly, all their thoughts are right and enter one code. 

A friend is an admirer, we call them champions in our lives. A friend is actually a great helper, one that plays as protagonist in our lives’ drama. The understanding of friendship in children tends to be more heavily focused on areas such as common activities, physical proximity and shared expectations. A pal, mate, sonny, partner or bloody are some words use to describe people that we spend most of our time and cheer up with.

The understanding of friendship turns to be more heavily focused on areas such as common activities, physical proximity and shared expectations. Photo: MentalUP

Socratism teaches that effective friendship has a quality of reciprocal relationship. It is a hold-my-hand-and-let-me-hold-your-hand affair. It is a relationship of mutual affection between people. Certain characteristics are present in many types of such bond which include affection, kindness, love, virtue, sympathy, empathy, honesty, altruism, loyalty, generosity, forgiveness, mutual understanding and compassion, enjoyment of each other’s company, trust and ability to express one’s feelings to others and make mistakes without fear of judgement from the friend. In fact, friendship is an essential aspect of relationship building skills. People are even encouraged to marry friends in certain cultures and theoretical ideology.

With all these findings and facts elaborated, I doubt with all fiber of my being when certain folks preach that we have bad friends and good friends.

Please hold your gut dear reader. I know you also agree to that voice and will therefore argue mentally upon hearing this which I don’t want you to. Probably there are even established biblical case studies to confirm good and bad friends. But before you ask me any question, do you understand who a friend and what friendship is?

What kind of friendship do you have? Scroll up and look at the questions I asked from the beginning; Are we friends or just acquaintance? 

This article is written in series. Get to read Friendship II for more understanding. Enjoy!