What is a Friend?

(This is a little essay about friendship I wrote for my Interpersonal Communication class. =] )


“Friend.” A word people use every day. Yet, what is a friend, truly? The dictionary.com definition is “a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.” Many people say they have tons of friends- 50, 100, or more. Facebook is one of the reasons of this, yet in reality, most of these people are only really acquaintances. Me, well, I only have a handful of what I call friends- approximately 13 at last count. Is my definition that different from society’s? Well, let me explain what I believe to be the term “friend” is.

First of all, a friend is someone you can trust with your thoughts, opinions, and you’re your true self. Someone who will listen to what you say and accept it, without judging. That is important- if someone judges you for who you are, then they are not a true friend. I only came to this realization fairly recently. I am genderqueer- that is, feel that I am a blur between male and female- and my friend Jordan is female to male transgender. We are both, however, wary of sharing this with many people. Jordan in particular has lost a lot of his “friends” because he is transgender- they didn’t accept him for who he is. They were not true friends.

A friend is someone who sticks by you, in thick or thin. They will not abandon you when you are full of tears, and will sit calmly and listen to you rant. Of course, they can’t be expected to drop everything at a dime’s notice to do this, but they find at least some time to comfort you, and definitely don’t avoid you completely when you’re feeling bad. A friend is someone you can be with in whatever mood you are in, happy or sad. You don’t have to hide your feelings from them, since you can trust them to be understanding. A friend cares about you, and thus will try to help you when you’re down.

A friend may not always agree with you, but they will not press this and certainly won’t argue with you extensively about whichever subject you don’t agree on. Well, at least not with anger or upset- some friends do argue jokingly or casually, after all; yet in this case, a friend also knows when to stop arguing if you start to feel upset.

A friend is also someone who is honest with you. True, some friends will lie, to protect you- this is merely a kindness though, and means they care about you enough to worry about your feelings. However, they will not lie to you in order to save their own butt. If they do something wrong, they will be open with you about it, and apologize for their actions. Why? Because they trust you to understand, as a true friend should. Alternatively, a friend also understands when you do something wrong, as well. People do make mistakes, after all, so a friend will not hold those mistakes against you. They do not take advantage of this, though, either- they will of course try to avoid making those mistakes which upset you.

I suppose that the bottom line here is that a friend, essentially, is someone you can trust with your soul. Someone you are not afraid to share yourself with, your entire self, and who will do the same for you. Friendship is a mutual thing, of course. A friend is someone who cares about and trusts you, and who you care about and trust as well.