Friends - What is an ideal friend like?

The Ideal Friend

There are many valuable things in life, but friendships are important to all cultures. Adults and children, especially teenagers, play a huge role in everyday lives since many are role models. These role models influence a change in one's life such as a best friend. A best friend is a close bond with someone that is unbreakable but knows you inside and out, without a doubt of going to the ends of the world for you. The ideal friend would have the following qualities: being loyal, honest, kind, and respectful.

Loyalty is a quality everyone looks for in a friend. It's the key to the stability of a lasting friendship. Loyalty has various definitions depending on the person's perspective or values. A loyal friend can be someone who is reliable and trustworthy. They will state their truthful opinion because they want to see the best of your ability. They will support you and your need to success. They will act accordingly at all times no matter what the consequences may be, good or bad. However, loyalty does not just come from humans, typically your dog can be your best friend too. Have you heard of a saying “A man’s best friend is their dog.” A dog’s loyalty to their owner or love ones can be precious because they allows us to love and care for them. We do not turn our backs on our dogs or our friends. Friendships are about who came and never left your side. People need to realize a person is not your friend until they have defended you in your absence. For example, your friend can be hanging around someone that does not like you and that person starts talking bad about you, while your friend does nothing. A real friend would have stop that person from disrespecting you in your absences. Loyalty may be hard to find, but if it is real then it will come from the heart. Just be aware of not putting yourself in situations that will question your loyalty. Be generous to your friends when they are in need of someone to count on. Try to balance and maintain your loyalty by comparison to honesty.

Honesty seems to be one of the most common norms in a relationship. It is one of the keys to a healthy friendship. A honest friend is someone who is willing to tell the truth at all times no matter the circumstances. Some may say that nothing hurts more than a person not being honest with you. A true friendship cannot be based on false advertisement  or lies.  Your honesty can be at fault, for instance, people should just admit to taking things too far when it’s better to be sensitive to one's feelings and listen to them then stating your opinion all the time. If you know that your opinion will matter and mean something positive then voice your opinion. There was a saying “ if you speak your truth, your more likely to speak the general truth.” Your friends are the ones you go to whenever you need advice, so their honesty is important. For example, if your friend was to ask you a question about if their pants makes them look fat, would you tell them your honest opinion or lie to protect their feelings? Or if they was stuck in a burning building, would you run in to save them? Questions like that could possibly jeopardize your relationship with that person depending on the answer choice and their reaction. Therefore to avoid situations, just tell the truth at all times and if you can not tell what is on your mind then just do not answer the question or change the subject. Only be honest and kind to your friend’s feelings.

What does it mean to be kind? Being kind is simply treating others the way you would want to be treated. Making your friends happy as if you would want to be be happy. There is nothing wrong with being kind to someone, you may never know when you might need help from them. In this case, my best friend Raven is the most devoted, trustworthy, sympathetic, and loving person I have known for years. When I found out my grandfather had stage two cancer, she was there every step of the way. Once in awhile, she would call me at night just to talk about life and check up on my grandfather’s condition.While I was going through a tough time, Raven always kept me up to date on the homework assignments, took detailed notes for me in class so I won’t be behind. Being that Raven was so kind to me in return when her brother had passed away, I was there whenever she needed me. I would stop by her house just to check up on her, bring her food, and made sure she was caught up on her homework. 

Old Friends vs. New Friends

“Make new friends, but keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold.” Joseph Parry.

We hear this saying often, but yet never really stop to think about it. Basically, this quote is saying that old friends are considered, “gold”, and new friends, “silver.” But is this really true? As we know, gold and silver are not equal elements which would mean that gold, old friends is greater than silver, new friends. Let’s peel back this topic a little bit more, focusing on the subject of friendship. Friendship is one of the most important relationships in people's daily lives. Having a lot of friends usually means you're comfortable with your surroundings, and can easily interact with everyone. People make friends because they want to interact with someone who shares the same interests and experiences. It’s a known fact that it is more important to make new friends than it to keep old.

We are constantly changing environments as we grow older. Friends are something that comes and goes throughout our lives. Encountering a new environment and be a challenge to many. They will face a lot of struggles attempting to adapt to the new circumstances. New friends are a way to overcome any troubles one may face in unknown surroundings. The friends who you were close to in Middle-school and throughout elementary and back, may or may not be the same friends you end up talking to twenty years later. Let’s take Nantucket High School as an example. The move from Middle School to Highschool is a big leap despite what others may say. With the sudden change of early lunch and late lunch, students find themselves in a tight clinch. Especially, when none of their friends are in their assigned lunches. For the first few days of the returning school year, students can easily sneak into unassigned lunches to sit with their friends, then simply use the excuse, “I didn’t know what lunch I had.” But over course, tardies start piling up and the whole ‘attached to the hip’ friend thing must come to an end. Students will soon begin to realize they are stuck with the choice of making new friends or preparing for a long year of sneaking lunch into the library. In this circumstance making new friends would be the ideal decision.

In life, we go through new experiences, which causes us to have a different perspective on things that over time makes a better, more improved version of us. If we are caught up on the old things, is there really room for us to improve? New friends give us the opportunity for us to practice our social, and communicative skills that as humans, we will need and use every single day of our lives. For instance, companies, big industries and now even colleges aren't just looking at what you can do as a person but now even require people who are skilled in social interactions. With the transition to adulthood, come times where collaboration, teamwork, and social skills are required for any successful person. Through the nerve-racking process of making new friends, we acquire many skills such as learning to catch people’s attention, being able to introduce yourself fluidly, starting a conversation, being a good listener, and most importantly being able to pursue similar interests. The social, and communicative skills that we will gain over time from meeting new friends will be the main backbone for our successful futures.

Friends are something we rely on as humans. They are there on our worst days, and even on our bests. We even consider some our long-lost siblings. We can’t ignore the fact that two humans are brought together based on the strong connection between the two. Since the cons of old friends have only been stated so far something is needed to balance the two out. Both old friends and even new friends share is the chance to make everlasting memories. From the memory of the first meeting that can be remembered years later. New friends will be there for us in the future, and old friends will always be there for us. New friends will gradually become old friends, another batch will take its place revealing the cycle of friendship. Some may disagree and say that old friend has more importance than making new friends. Which may be true in some cases. But as the years pass we spread away, and grow from our old habits. At times, our liking changes over and so does our interests and experience.  Old friends and new friends will leave imprints on our lives forever no matter what.

We need both new friends and old friends in our lives to keep things balanced, and interesting. New friends satisfied the desire for new experiences, and interest, while old friends remained, are our constant “rock” or in this case our “gold”. Let’s look back at this quote, “Make new friends, but keep the old; Those are silver, these are gold.” Friends aren’t something that can be measured in elements, it's a relationship that’s measured in value. The best type of friendship, are the ones that nurture you and help you grow over time to become a more comfortable person. Therefore, it’s okay to keep your old friends but never be afraid to branch out and meet new friends. Because one of them may unexpectedly change your life for the better.