Friendship

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship a word that brings smile to everyone who hears about it. Friends are like an important part of our lives, someone we could not avoid. They may be small or large in number but the time spent with them is something that cannot be forgotten, whether it be the time in the classroom during the lectures or in the school grounds, canteens, in the lobby or outside the classrooms during the punishments, etc.

But with every phase of life, the type of people we encounter in our lives is varied. Each and everyone has a variety of friends – some with whom we would like to go for parties, others with whom we would like to gossip, some to spend your time with while playing and roaming around or in short some for each and every circumstance of our lives. But most of us always have some or the other person whom we have encountered in our lives who from that instance is a part of our lives through our every thick and thin.

To have a friend to share your thoughts, clear doubts, tell lies to, make fun of, roam around and the one with whom you can be open to is truly a blessing.

v Sources of Friendship:

But are all of your friends the same and behave the same, I would classify the friends we have into following types:

• 1.       Childhood Friends: They are mostly know in common Indian tongues as the “chuddy-buddies”. These may be the ones whom we have encountered in our neighbourhood or during the times we used to play after the school and may be the ones we went to school with. These are the ones with whom we spent the most memorable days in our lives but with time and the tensions in life, we forget these.
• 2.       Schoolmates: These are the ones with whom we spent our childhoods most of the productive times with. By productive I mean learning theories in school and applying them in the classroom, having fun by sitting at the backbenches, playing with the foil in our lunchboxes during the lunch breaks and other short breaks, making fun of other classmates and playing with each other using the stationery which were meant for education. These were the people who taught us how to be in a team, how to be leaders, how to support and be supported, etc. However, old do we become it does not matter, these memories and meeting them after years brings a feeling of refreshment and smile to us irrespective of the troubles we are facing in our lives.
• 3.       College-mates: A phase of life which prepares us for the further battles of life. But it is a world different from the others we have seen till then. From different backgrounds and parts of the country and may be the world, we get a chance to come together and influence each other’s lives.  But this is a stage which brings a sense of seriousness to our lives whether it be in our academics, politics, love or relationship. But the scenario is being batch-mates or classmates or hostel-mates makes us learn about different phases of our lives and makes us to be self-reliant, confident, self-introspect, explore new world and the ways of dealing it. And the most important aspect is the love life or the relationship we encounter during this period that excites most of us to the colleges.
• 4.       Office mates: These are the ones whom we encounter in our workplaces, these may include the same people from the above categories but mostly the scenario is not the same. As stated above depending upon the kind of work and the location, this phase of life also bring people to our lives who help us in our official works may be in the process or to become competitive and develop our skills to enhance our skills. But there are frequent chances that you get people who for their own benefits make use of your talents or utilise your skills to grow in their life and deceitfully ditch you in times of need.
• 5.       Social Media: The friendship through different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc and applications like Tinder, etc. are also trending these days. Random people making request to be friends and people getting in touch with random people is a common phenomenon seen on these sites.

v    Qualities in a Friend:

A famous proverb says “A friend in need is a friend indeed” but this need is the one which usually leads to friendship in today’s world. Most of the people nowadays are in stress of their work or problems in their lives and need someone to share their feelings to or problems with. But they don’t get to share someone with them their problems and if they do get someone and trust that person to share their problems, the other person takes advantage of these problems against the person. This makes the person to lose faith in friendship and thus, people shut themselves off and don’t further trust anyone else.

F	Faithful
R	Reliable
I	Intelligent
E	Encouraging
N	Naughty and
D	Delightful

Some qualities which everyone of us looks in our friends may be

Ø  F-Faithful: By faithful I mean here someone who is loyal to us.-Loyalty

Ø  R-Reliable: By reliable, someone who can be relied upon or trusted, who won’t leave you in the midst of troubles, may be looked upon for help-Secret Holder

Ø  I-Intelligent: By intelligent, it is not meant that the person should be a scholar or so. It just means that must be able to use their minds. Someone who could be approached to solve problems-Problem Solver

Ø  E-Encouraging: By encouraging, it means a person who could encourage us to build up the courage to face situations and may come with us to face that with us.- Motivator

Ø  N-Naughty: If there is no fun with friends then what is the use of it, right. Every friend brings out the quality in each one of us which breaks the rules set by the society in different phases of our life.-Fun Loving

Ø  D-Delightful: A friend must be the one being with whom makes us forget time or we become unaware of the time. There is lot to talk about and discuss when we are with our friends and that is what brings the delight in us.-Memorable

v  Types of Friendship:

1.       Name-Sake Friends: These are the ones who are friends for the sake of name. They must be present in our friend list and contact list of phones but we hesitate to contact them or even does not consider them to be contacted at times. E.g. All the students in a classroom

2.       Close Friends: These are the friends within our friend list whom we contact frequently and as the name suggests the Social Media also provides us with this option. Consider the Instagram option of sharing our stories with selected few or Facebook’s option of Share with, etc. These are closer than the above mentioned class and are usually referred to in our conversations.

3.       Besties: Now this is a few special people who are the ones we connect to on a daily basis and the ones who know us inside out. These may be the ones who knows us inside out and remains in contact even for a longer time in our lives.

4.       Boyfriends & Girlfriends: Now this comes in couple type of friendship and they remain upto themselves. I am not aware what they talk about day in and day out, may be you people are better aware of it.

5.       Common Helping Friend: It is basically a person who is referred to by everyone you know or may not in case of need and this person is remembered by everyone at times of need of any help or to get them out of any problem. It is a kind of friendship most common and used basically to get things done.

6.       Gang or Band: This is basically a group of friends which is basically formed in the school days or in college days. These people usually share common interest or intellect and are usually found together. This is formed as part of common interest like sports, music, specialisation, etc.

7.       Parental Friendship: This is an exclusive type of friendship in which our parents are considered as friends. People share everything with their parents either father or mother or may be both.

It also can include friendship among family cousins or so, if any.

All of us have plenty of friends in our friends list on different Social Media Platforms, in which category each falls in now I suppose every one of us can identify. You can even add to the above categories other than these and can add your comments and recommendations as well. I hope this blog might have at least brought back the old memories of your life in which true and fun-filled friends where the part of our lives. So, be a friend whom every other person can trust and remember for a longer time..