Friend is a word that gets thrown around a lot. We have grown accustomed to calling mere acquaintances our friends, using the word as an invisible connector to persons we deem important or useful in one way or another. We use it after accepting a “friend request”; sometimes we use the word after having just met someone when in reality a friendship takes time to develop. Where is the value of those six letters? People say the word but don’t honor its underlying meaning. What’s worse is that the people you consider your best friends can undervalue that meaning too—and that hurts most.
When you are someone’s friend, you care about him or her. You wouldn’t want to put them in an uncomfortable position. You wouldn’t want them to feel hurt or betrayed or sad, and if they are, you extend a hand, an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on. You prioritize their feelings above someone’s you’ve just met.
When you get a promotion, you tell your best friend. When you make a bad life choice, you seek advice from your best friend. When your heart has been broken, you cry on your best friend’s shoulder. But what do you do when it is your best friend who breaks your heart?
An important life lesson I’ve recently learned is that friendships, like any relationships, ought to be looked after with the utmost care. They are more precious than we may think and without attention, can wither away like a flower that has been denied water and sunlight. Everyone is different, and each bond has a different dynamic, but some words and actions are universally unacceptable. The more we mistreat another person, the closer we get to a wilting flower we’ll forever throw away and perhaps replace with a new, albeit different one. Those who can’t care for flowers? They buy fake ones and have them for years, but don’t reap the benefits they otherwise would with real flowers—the ability to watch it grow.
The point isn’t to constantly buy new flowers or be content with fake ones; it is to hold onto the real ones for as long as possible, caring for them until you’ve done all that you could. Like flowers, different friendships require different care, and it’s important to be attentive to those differences. It is crucial to make known, whether through words or actions or both, what your friend means to you. This is how bonds form, ones where both parties cherish the other and their friendship as something special.
Our friends, even the ones dearest to us, make mistakes. We’re all human. It’s only natural. But are some mistakes just unforgivable? Where do we draw the line? When the very definition of a friend, a true friend, is ignored, what is really left of the relationship? What do you do when a best friend has chosen his or her needs selfishly above the well-being and safety of their friend? If you forgive and forget these hurtful acts, are you condoning such behavior?
When did we start throwing away real flowers and replacing them with fake ones?