One thing I've found fascinating that I've discovered more and more as I journey towards adulthood (any day now) is how different people think different qualities define what a good friend is.
Here's just a sampling of different rules I've heard named as The Rule of Friendship that Everyone Knows.
1. You must always tell your friend when they are doing something you feel is wrong. Expressing your opinion is paramount to being a Good Friend. This should supersede hurting their feelings, and don't stand on ceremony and wait to be asked for your input, because you care more about their Well-Being than their comfort.
2. You must never express your opinions in anger. A Good Friend only expresses opinions calmly, kindly, and rationally. Don't even think about being snarky to your friend. Friends don't Bite Friends Heads Off!
3. Never wear buy the same perfume your friend owns.
That last one is key, by the way.
Here's my idea of some friendship rules to live by:
1. Don't lie to your friends. Trust is cool, liars drool.
2. Be loyal. None of this talking behind the back stuff. If you talk about one friend to another, eventually it will occur to the listener that you could very possibly be sharing their deep dark secrets too.
3. Root for their happiness. Sometimes you have to tell a friend something that makes them sad, or mad, or sad and mad. But I like to weigh that against what I think I would want people to tell me instead of allowing things to fester and rot, and allowing them to do stupid embarrassing things and not realize it. Framing your actions with what you think will ultimately promote their happiness helps cut out some of the selfishness. Or so I hear.
4. Have their Six. That's like cop speak for having their back. If my underwear is showing and you judge instead of telling me, I will remember it forever. Also if I'm trying on jeans and they make my butt look big, tell me before I buy. Because if you tell me after I buy, I will be cursing your name all the way through the returns line.
5. Forgive. I had a friend in Junior High School that I was a serious snot to. I didn't speak to him much for about a year. Because I'm stupid, that's why. But he still speaks to me. To this day. He's even my MyFace friend. When I want to wring a friend's neck until their eyes bug out and their head flies clean off their head, I think of him. Because I want to be like him when I grow up. and he did not pluck my eyes from my head and feed them to the seagulls, however sorely he was tempted. So be sure to cut your friends some slack when The Crazy comes out. And do it quickly. Because being the Bigger Person makes you a very desirable friend.
I like the way it was summarized on CNN/Oprah here (Anderson and Oprah joining forces... talk about some world domination.):
Friendship is about being what a hero of mine described as "balcony people" instead of "basement people."
Basement people are those who live in our minds, telling us we will never amount to anything, that we are doomed to fail and that we are royal screw ups.
Balcony people are those who are consistently cheering us on. "Go for it," they say to our attempts to find our voice, to live in ever widening circles, to dare, to create, to break through our lives' sound barriers.
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