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What are friends? Reflections on a given topic. Who is a friend and do modern people need friends

It happens that the friendship of two individuals originates in childhood. Some people from the school desk. It is also possible to find comrades while studying at the institute, serving in the army, at work, at a party. People who are close in spirit sometimes meet in clubs of interest, at concerts, exhibitions. You can also meet interesting people while traveling.

To strengthen the acquaintance, you need to have some points of contact. It can be a hobby, a way of life, a goal or a dream, some views, a field of activity. It is clear that it will be difficult for two completely different people to communicate. When individuals have very different social status, level of moral development and education, this can become an obstacle to the emergence of friendship between them.

A true friend

Remember that a true friend is not just a person with whom you have fun, pleasant and interesting to spend time with. A true comrade can pour out his soul in a difficult moment, ask him for life advice or share joy with him. Some individuals will not be able to empathize and help you. No matter how well you spend time together, such people cannot be called true friends.

A friend will come to the rescue in difficult times. He will not assert himself at your expense, he will not joke about a topic that is painful for you, specifically remind you of your mistakes. This is a person who knows you perfectly, and, despite all your shortcomings, appreciates your company and location.

To maintain friendship, do not abuse the good attitude of your friend. No need to ask too much and create a lot of inconvenience for friends. Spare the feelings of those close to you. For example, if you disapprove of a friend's choice for no particular reason, you don't need to upset him and bring negativity to the moments when he is happy.

Remember that true friends respect each other. They do not manipulate friends, value their time and effort, try to organize common leisure in such a way that everyone is happy, take care of each other, do not forget about gifts, congratulations or small signs of attention on holidays and significant dates.

Keep in mind that true friends cannot be very many. After all, in order to maintain relationships, you need to give each of them your strength, time and attention. When there are many close friends, you will not physically have time to maintain friendship, you may not have enough mental strength. A true friend is worth several good acquaintances, do not forget about this when building relationships with others.

Our life is full of information, events, worries. And modern man very often does not have enough time even for himself. It seems that everyone around is focused on making money, solving family problems and other worldly concerns. And in order to communicate with people, now you do not need to visit, bake pies, make an appointment. You can just turn on your computer or pick up your phone. Does a modern person need a friend?

What is friendship

First you need to define the concepts. What is a friend? This word means a person, disinterested relations with which are built on mutual sympathy, trust, common interests. The main difference between friendly contacts and friendly ones is the feeling of inner closeness, and not the duration of acquaintance and the regularity of meetings. You can not remember a friend for weeks, but this does not stop him from being who he is. You can communicate with a person for 20 years and not find a close relationship with him. However, you can become, having met a week ago.

Moreover, the concept of “friend” is so broad that it can relate to relations with a spouse and with parents, and with brothers. Although it is possible with all relatives, living under one roof, not to know anything about each other and not to have a spiritual community, closeness. Friendship does not depend on the degree of kinship, but on its subjective feeling. The value of these relationships lies in the fact that such a friend knows you inside and out and still continues to love you. And it's mutual.

As a rule, when evaluating a relationship, a person asks himself four questions:

  • Is the comrade ready to understand and accept me?
  • Can he not betray me and deceive me?
  • Can he be there when I have both joyful and sad events?
  • Can I answer him the same?

It is generally accepted about a friend that he will not leave you in trouble, and will share joy. We often hear sad things from people. They boil down to no. But the point is that this process is two-way. In order to have reliable faithful comrades, you must first of all be like that yourself. This means that sometimes for your words, if you said something about a friend without thinking, and sometimes, on the contrary, show patience, understand and forgive.

You cannot demand fidelity, unconditional acceptance and responsiveness from people, while giving nothing in return.

Life is so complex and varied that in close relationships, at times, it is very important to be able to forgive, meet halfway, give in, keep silent, support, find the right words.

Friendship is destroyed

  • broken promises,
  • words thrown to the wind
  • betrayal,
  • gossip,
  • meanness,
  • self-interest.

If there is no trust, then close relationships end. And if people remember each other only when it is beneficial for them, it is rather a friendship, nothing more.

Any relationship is work. They live as long as they invest time, effort, energy, money. And when a person stops attaching importance to them and remembering a friend at least occasionally, the relationship usually ends naturally.

Probably, in the life of everyone it happened that it seemed that a person had been a friend for many years, and then fate divorced. And after a long separation, at a meeting, you suddenly realize that you are completely alien and even there are no common topics for conversation. Talking about each other to keep in touch is pointless. But sometimes there is such a level of affection between people that even after meeting a few years later, they understand a friend perfectly.

The strongest friendships often develop with those with whom a person has experienced the most difficult periods of his life.

For example, men's often originates in the army. And the test of women is the decree. Young people often carry their friendly relations from student times, from construction teams. They are united by common sorrows, common adventures, common memories. If you met under such conditions, you remember your friend with warmth even years later.

If friendship originates from childhood, then one often has to see how contact is maintained by people who, it would seem, no longer have anything in common. But this relationship has stood the test of time and is one of the strongest. And it's great when there is a person nearby who knew you as completely different, carefree, unintelligent, without money, a car and a wife.

Not everyone is good at making friends. The makings of this talent are formed in childhood. There are people who, for some reason, really do not need anyone. They are used to relying only on themselves and do not share their experiences with anyone. Maybe they feel lonely, or maybe they don't think about it at all.

Why are friends needed?

Now people seem to have no time to be friends, and there is no need. Every year there are more and more alternatives to simple human communication: forums, online games, social networks. You can ask for advice from hundreds of people at the same time, cry into your vest too, and without fear that you will be judged. Whatever a person comes up with, there will definitely be like-minded people on the worldwide network. You can even ask for help on the Internet from strangers. At the same time, it requires many times less energy and forces than real ones. And you don't have to worry about your friend. Very convenient at first glance.

Of course, each person decides for himself whether he wants to have friends. And here are the reasons why most of us still want to.

  • Man is a social being, it is important for him to be part of a community. It can be simply scary for him to feel that in the whole wide world he is alone and absolutely no one needs him.
  • Everyone needs to have at least one witness to their life, which is a friend. This is the only way to feel that you exist for a reason. Any joyful event becomes even more enjoyable if there is someone to celebrate it with. And the severity of adversity is twice as light if you are not experiencing them alone.

This virtual network can never replace. Internet communication is just words. This means that it will not be able to replace the friendly handshakes and hugs that are so needed in difficult times.

The most important conditions for friendship are trust and respect. These feelings arise gradually and grow stronger over the years of honest relationships. People become friends against the background of common interests, but not every friendly acquaintance turns into a warm and bright relationship.

Friends in a person's life

It's nice to have a person in your life who will always support and help. A friend is one whose authority becomes equal to his own. In other words, relationships between people develop on complete trust and perception of an essentially alien person, it becomes respectful, as to oneself. Such harmony is achieved only many years after testing for responsiveness and assistance in certain situations.

Loneliness in the modern world does not bring positive results. A person without friends becomes a hermit and it is difficult for him to take his place in a developed society. Even the most closed introvert will be unbearable if there is no one to talk heart to heart with, explain himself and hear banal words of support and understanding from the outside.

What is a true friend?

According to modern psychologists, the strongest friendships are born in childhood and adolescence. But, growing up, a person loses hope that you can trust someone other than yourself, and in some cases even yourself. Most often, such speculation arises after betrayal by a friend. There are still good people left, and if one betrayed you, it does not mean that the other will betray you.

After disappointment, it becomes difficult to understand who can be called a true friend. Now people are used to communicating remotely, not opening up to people and keeping all the most intimate in themselves. Such relationships are more like friendships, partnerships or in the spirit of acquaintances, neighbors, colleagues. For some, this style makes life easier, for others it complicates. Remember that some buddies or colleagues can become best friends, it's just a matter of time.

How to become a friend?

There are no barriers to true friendship. Those people who know what a friend is confirm this expression with burning eyes. Becoming such a person is not easy, it will only work if a person begins to experience sincere good feelings and sympathy. Friends should think for two, worry, sympathize and help in any situation.

Given all the subtleties and understanding what qualities a friend should have, you should not forget about the other side of the coin. Close people are not only help in a difficult situation, but also sincere joy for a friend with his luck. As many scientists say, it is much easier to survive grief and support in trouble than not to envy your friend in moments of true happiness.

10 qualities of a friend

It is not so easy to overcome a long life path alone. Even the strongest and most self-confident people need support. Those who claim that they live perfectly and without friends are deeply mistaken, because, perhaps, they have not yet felt that real and true friendship. Psychologists say that there are qualities of a true friend by which one can unravel the true intentions of a person.


Negative traits of a friend

The worst quality in friendship is envy. It is with her that a person will never be able to understand who a friend is. Such people love only to sympathize and empathize, but sincerely rejoice, they will not succeed. The bad qualities of a friend are also arrogance and irascibility, selfishness and hypocrisy, and most importantly, cruelty, cowardice and indifference.

How to be a good friend?

For quality friendship, you do not need any great knowledge. Sincerity and support at any time are the best qualities in life. Take care of strong friendship from youth, because time-tested people are practically incapable of betrayal. Find out for yourself who the best friend is, and then you will not have to make mistakes in people. The main thing, remember, in friendship is not only to receive, but also to give.

Probably, in the life of every person there are friends. But it often happens that an enemy is hiding under the guise of a true friend, and when we understand this, we are deeply disappointed in people. What does friend mean? How to determine if a person close to you is a friend or not?

Friendship is, first of all, a feeling that is a disinterested relationship between people that is built on trust and respect. Any friendship is considered real if it is built on the following points:

  • trust and respect;
  • mutual sympathy and understanding;
  • sincerity and selflessness;
  • common hobbies and interests.

In our time, the concept of what true friends mean is still preserved, but more and more often you see that friendship is being replaced by relationships that are completely different from it. So, friendship is not:

  • friendly relations (they directly depend on communication, so if you don’t communicate for a long time, and then meet on the street and pass by only after saying hello, then this is not friendship at all);
  • romantic relationships (very often people confuse friendships with falling in love, taking the first for the second and, conversely, it is important to talk to each other here).

The concept of a friend in a relationship

So what does it mean to be a friend? The most faithful friend should have the following qualities:

  • be sincere and open;
  • be able to sympathize;
  • be selfless;
  • be able to listen and be interested in experiences;
  • be ready to help in difficult times;
  • be able to admit their mistakes and forgive;
  • be able to keep other people's secrets;
  • be able to give and receive advice.

True friends are attached to each other, as a rule, until the end of their days. At the same time, it must be remembered that friendship has no restrictions in terms of gender and age, and is in no way connected with sexual desires.

Common myths about friendship

Society for many centuries diligently invented various myths regarding various relationships between people of different sexes. There are certain myths about friendship:

  • there is only real male friendship (the myth that only men can be true true friends);
  • female friendship does not exist (the myth that women do not know how to selflessly and selflessly be friends, communicating with each other only because of mercantile interests);
  • friendship between a man and a woman does not exist (the myth that all men see in women only a sexual object);
  • friendship is always opposed to love (the myth that love relationships can spoil the best friendship).

So, if you understand what a true friend means, and also free yourself from the stereotypes imposed by society, then you will be able to build normal healthy relationships with other people in the future and avoid disappointment.

So says a well-known Russian proverb. But it often happens in life that a complete stranger helps in trouble, and the one who called himself a "friend" modestly stays away, not even trying to do anything. How to act in such cases? How to protect yourself from such, by and large, useless people?

For this, first of all, it is necessary to have a clear idea of ​​friends and what the noble word "friendship" means in general. If you look in any of the explanatory dictionaries, you can find the following meaning:

"Friendship is a relationship between two or more people based on mutual trust, affection and common interests."

This is not an entirely accurate concept, only suitable for defining people that you have to deal with on numerous social networks or in any clubs. It is not able to fully reveal all aspects of such a high relationship. In order to fully understand what friends are, you will have to take a deep enough look at life and look as critically as possible at the people who surround us.

One of the great people wrote that true friendship is not only something in common. True friendship is something more, which implies not only mutual respect and affection, but also certain duties towards each other, disinterestedness and readiness to always and under any circumstances provide support.

In fact, only the Others do this, but, as it was written above, they prefer to stay on the sidelines, expressing only a semblance of sympathy. Therefore, it is generally accepted that absolutely all new friends should undergo a kind of "strength test" of the existing relationship. This is where the mass arises, because if a "friend" in the event of a force majeure situation got off with only advice, and did not offer material (or other significant) assistance, should this mean that in fact such a person is not a friend at all? Is it worth it to take his side and understand him, how they do it, or should he be driven away from himself as soon as possible?

Hence the classification of new acquaintances into "just (or close) friends" and the rest. But in this case, the answer to the question "what are friends" takes on a completely obscene character. It turns out that a friend is a person who can or not provide any service in the event of unforeseen circumstances. Somehow it all sounds low, although it is quite in the spirit of modernity - in the modern world you have to pay for everything ...

What are friends? Is it worth trusting everyone you meet who claims to be a friend? Does every person after that become one? In fact, all these questions have neither a clear answer nor a clear interpretation. One cannot become a friend just like that, because such a desire has arisen. Friendship is a much more complex feeling that is akin to genuine. When you are ready to forgive your loved one for everything, no matter what he does, no matter what he says. When he wants to help for free, not expecting to receive anything in return, and not just because he has to do it. Friendship is a kind of manifestation of love. And love, as everyone knows, can only be understood when it is brought to feel.