There's a word that I've been contemplating, and if you're up to date with my blog you'll understand why.
"Best friend"
What is a best friend?
What does it mean to be one?
Why do we have them?
What makes one friend better than another?
The questions are flying round my head like you wouldn't believe.
Now, being an English Literature student and loving the etymology of words, I break it down into its components:
"best" and "friend"
Best means to excel the most, to be better than all others.
Friend... friend is more tricky. I had a boyfriend once who classed everyone they knew as a 'friend' and the people they were really close to as 'mates'... I was the opposite. So what is a friend?
Well, this is the definition I've come up with. What I mean when I say friend:
A friend is a person who you enjoy spending time with, who knows you to a larger degree than a person who has only just met you, who you help when they need you, who is there for you when you need them. Someone to spend your time with and enjoy talking to, and who you trust.
Ergo a best friend must be:
A person you enjoy spending all your time with, or whom you enjoy spending time with above anyone else. A person who knows you more than any other. A person who you always help, and always want to help, no matter how big or small the problem. A person who is always there for you, even when you don't know that you need them. Someone to spend all your time with and who you enjoy talking to on any and all levels. Someone you trust with your life and who trusts you, in return, with theirs.
That would seem succinct enough - yes?
So why are the questions still there?
Why do I continue to analyse and question this definition?
Is there something I left out? I'm not sure. Love maybe?
See, the reason that I'm questioning this is because I'm trying to pigeon hole my friendships. Trying to re-clarify and re-classify them according to this model. And, okay - yes - there is a certain friend who I'm trying to work out if the term was applied to without credit.
Has anyone ever said to you "You're supposed to be my friend!"? How justified do you think they were when they said that?
See, the question I'm really getting at is not 'were they justified in saying that you weren't acting like a friend at the time?', but 'does the term 'friend' come with a level of attachment that must always be upheld?'
For instance, can a friendship be broken temporarily... or is it something we are committed to from the instant of forming it until it is completely broken? Also, are we committed to satisfying our own definition of 'friendship' or must we be committed to satisfying theirs?
This is such a hard question for me at the moment, because I am definitely the sort of person who says "this is me, take me as I am or don't bother." but at the same time I feel the need to satisfy everyone. That's where all my problems come from I suppose.
Dad put it nicely once and said that I just had "too big a heart"... but really it comes from the need to be appreciated and liked, I think. So in actual fact it comes from being selfish. Wow, confusing.
But look at it this way: Making people happy makes you happy.Therefore, going out of your way to make someone happy will make you happy. Therefore, going out of your way to make someone happy is going out of your way to make yourself happy.
If the premise is correct, the conclusion must also logically be correct.
I don't know if my premise is correct though....
Going back to the previous phrase of "you're supposed to be my friend" : can it be said that fulfilling ones side of the friendship is reliant on their satisfying the other? For instance, many a time when I've either heard, said, or over-heard those words - the rebuttal has been along the lines of "you started it" or "so are you"... implying that the person doing the blaming has started - or at least partaken in - the breaking of the silent, invisible promise of friendship.
There seem to be so many expectations bound up in friendship... and some people who I class as friends hardly ever fulfill those expectations... so does that mean they're not really friends??
If I don't fulfill them for people who class me as a friend... am I not their friend?
What if I don't know that there's something lacking?
See, this is why I never used to have friends. I had acquaintances. People I knew and talked to... but no commitment.
Commitment is something that scares me. Something I've fallen into many many times. Something that makes me so terrified that I wont live up to expectations; that I'll let that person down, or hurt them...
I don't think I make a very good friend if I'm honest.
I try! I do! But I'm very good at getting it wrong.
My flatmate Helen keeps calling me an angel...
it's sweet, and lovely... but it makes me cringe because I know how untrue it is... and I'm dreading the day she works it out too.
Part of me hopes, dreams, wishes that she's right. That I am a nice person.
But she's so easy to be friends with that I know it's wrong to base my perspective of friendship abilities on her responses to it.
After all, my other flatmate, Kaydie, has shown me (irrevocably) to be the evilest creature that walks the earth...
which helps keep it in perspective!
Kaydie.
I guess through all of this I'm trying to work out what went wrong.
I mean, I know what went wrong. Difference of opinion mixed with mistaken perspectives... mixed with a boy... it was bound to go completely wrong. Part of me whispers that I knew that from the start.
But really, what went wrong so that our friendship blew apart so quickly and easily?
Lack of communication maybe...
But my only real opinion has, unfortunately, been that we can't have been close friends to start with. I want to say maybe we were too close? But I look at my own personal definition of 'best friend' and use it as a tick list... and I can't tick much off. Was I that bad a friend to her? Wow.
I feel very defeated by the entire situation.
I read a comment on one of my blogs (i know! me, get a comment - wow!) that basically said I wasn't seeing Kaydie's perspective, and that if I didn't want to start a fight I wouldn't post things in my blog. (If I'm honest, I 'knew' at the time of those blogs that she hadn't and to my knowledge wouldn't read them... though in hind sight I should have realised that would change)
So, maybe I am really as blind as I've been accused of.
Time will tell.
For now, it's time to embrace hope again and stop thinking about what a friend is and try to be one instead.
It's time to face the world and try to just be me, and hope that that's good enough.
Best wishes and love to you.
Blessed Be xx
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