"A friend in need is a friend indeed!" Could you name all those people whom you can call "friend"? Then count them. As far as I can judge, there cannot be many friends. If a person says, "I have many friends," it means that he/she has kith, but not friends. The same thing is with the best friends. There can be only one best friend, because "the best" means "the only one who is the best".
So who are our friends? Are they people who know almost everything about us? Do they know all our weaknesses? Are they always ready to help? Are they a part of our private life? Do they understand us more than other people? I suppose, they are and do. So if I'm not mistaken they are almost the same people as our relatives and parents. But there's one nuance: there are a lot of moments in our life when our friends know about us much more than our parents and relatives. By the way, the best friends are even closer to us.
It's said that friendship is the strongest form of relationships. As far as I know, it is. Unfortunately, from time to time we lose friends. And sometimes we regenerate our companionship with them. In this case our relationships are probably improving. I also should say that it's very difficult to lose our best friends.
Sometimes we need years to understand that this man is our friend, now for then only some hours of telephone chatting are enough to realize this simple thing. In any case, to find a friend is one of the greatest fortunes in ones life. As for me, I have a few friends, but I know them very well and can bank up on them in any situation. Speaking about the best friend, I should say that I have her. But before I understood that she was my best friend, I'd been communicating with her for a long period of time (we were classmates). We have many similar traits of character, and there are a lot of things that distinguish us. We're the stone and the water, the fire and the ice.
To conclude I must tell you a few things. Our friends are our wealth. To maintain friendship you sometimes need much patience and a great desire to continue the companionship with this or that person. And it is harder to be a good friend than to find a good one. So appreciate friendship, respect your friends and don't lose them because of any stupidities, and be the best friends for them.
Friends are important people in our life. They support us when we need it. But personally, I think our best friends are our family. We can lose a friend at any time, but our family will always be our family. Of course we sometimes tell our friends something that we don't tell our relatives. But we can't trust them EVERYTHING that happens in our life. But it's just my opinion.
There are the words in a poem by Elizabeth Jennings that reflect the meaning of friendship: "...understanding in one word or in brief letters. It's preserved by trust and by respect and awe..."
You know, its strange for me that no one of the speakers mentioned 2 important things: 1) friendship is proved by time 2) friendship is proved by some difficulties:quarrels, problems in family and in private life and so on and so forth... As for me, I can hardly believe people because there were some situations in my life when the closest friends betrayed me and it caused real pain. So, there are only some people who know me. All the others have a very strange attitude to me. But for me it doesn't matter.
Yes, that's true, our friends are sometimes the only people who are allowed to see our drawbacks and shortcomings. We don't need to pretend to be good and kind as they know our real self. This means our mates make us feel unselfconscious and unbound. Only with loyal friends we can be relaxed and feel at ease.
I entirely agree with your assumptions and conclusions. I think I can hardly name a person who is my best friend. A few aquaintances, may be. For me, friendship is the matter of permanent trust and loyalty to each other. Honesty makes any friendship strong. But can we trust everything to our friends or the best friend? I don't know. The best friend is someone whom you can tell everything without being afraid of disagreement or criticism. I wish I had the best friend!
I suppose, there are things that we mustn't trust our friends or the best friend. It's a kind of our personal secrets. Only we ourselves must know about them. On the one hand, I agree with you, Teacher, we can tell our best friend everything without being afraid of disagreement or criticism. But on the other friend, in my opinion, the best friend is a person who can tell you the whole truth about you and your actions. But it doesn't mean that it's bad, because you should respect his criticism. You know, sometimes I tell my friends such phrase, "If I don't tell you this or that thing, nobody will tell it."
As for disagreement and criticism,I'm on the way to conclude that these are two things that I expect from the people whom I rely on. Well, that is not a universal truth or whatever, and I know that it doesn't comply with all the people on earth, but I become more and more earnest that the two features mentioned about are of unconceivable value. Perhaps, it is a pity, but I have rarely come across a person who would have criticized me in order to do me good. More often people around me just begin flattering me, or envying, or showing sincere devotion, everything except constructive criticism. But for me, this is what makes us all keep going, and our friends are to help us, aren't they?
