Everyone in this world has friends. There is no one in this world who has never tasted the honey of friendship. If you gonna ask yourself the meaning of a friend, you may not get an answer. A friend is something that you can not define in words or it is not that can be found on dictionary. A friend is beyond words. It is something you feel, you know, you understand but you can not define.
Have you ever thought of what is the role of a friend in our life? How can a friend change our life? The role of a friend in our life is as that of air we breathe, it is as that of water, as that of food and as that of our basic needs.
As the time goes on and on, as the frequency of meets and talks decreases, due some unavoidable reasons, you may start to feel like your best friend, who was almost everything to you, is now not really important as he/she was earlier. But no matter what, you need a friend through out your life. It is even good if he/she is same old best friend.
We face many situations in our life which can only be shared or seek help to a friend. You turn to your friend when you breakup with your lover or when you face issues with him/her. You turn to your friend when you get hurt by someone be it by other friend or your lover or someone from your family. You need your friend in every difficult situation you face in your life. It may be simple as of silly fallacy fought to complex as of conceive case.
If you try to find the reasons for gradual decrease in friendship, you will get many. First one, as I already said, decrease in frequency of meets and talks. Second one will mostly be misunderstandings between friends which remain either untold or unresolved. Third one, change in position or environment might also decrease friendship. You studied in your place and now have come to entirely new place to do job. Your position changes now, your surrounding environment changes, even there will be a change in your behavior also. You will be unaware, rather ignorant, of your behavioral changes; but your friend notices every change in you. Either you start to feel you don’t need him/her or your friend starts to feel that now no there is no need of him/her to you based on your response. This will always remain untold or unheard resulting into a gradual decrease of friendship.
The other reasons include like entry of new person between you and your friend. This new might be your friend’s lover or husband or another friend who tries to snatch your friend from you. Earlier your friend used to share everything with you, spend most of time with you, always ask advice or help to you no matter how silly it is. Now for all these, another person is taking a share and you start to feel that there is no need of you to your friend now. It becomes responsibility of your friend to manage between two and to prevent imbalance of importance. However everyone doesn’t do this and this ultimately leads again to the gradual decrease of friendship.
Friendship mainly includes four stages. In first stage, everything looks and feels sweet and nice. In initial stage of friendship, you won’t object to his/her views or talks. You feel, yours and your friend’s views are similar. This is a ‘heaven on earth’ stage.
In second stage, as the friendship grows, gradually you will get to know that your friend is not exactly as you thought earlier. You will start to find to more differences in opinions between you. But however at this stage of friendship you won’t express any uncomfartability in front of your friend. You will keep mum thinking he/she will improve further in future.
You enter third stage when this uncomfartability reaches its peak. You open your mouth at this stage and actually start complaining or even start quarrelling with your friend. Arguments, misunderstandings, foughts..etc everything comes under this stage. This is very crucial stage and the future of your relationship depends on how well you handle this stage, how you solve these misunderstandings. Most of relationships or friendships break at this stage only. It is very important to clear misunderstandings in your relationship. Misunderstandings that untold are like a poison in your heart which uproots your relationship. It is better to talk openly and sort out the issues before grows to oak. If your friend hurts you knowingly or unknowingly by his words or by his acts, tell him/her openly. By doing this, you will help yourself as well as your friend. First benefit is you cleared your misunderstanding at a seed stage and you helped your friend to improve himself/herself by telling his mistake. It will prevent him/her to do the same mistake again in future. Friendship nurtures in this way only.
You will be in the fourth stage of friendship when you successfully cross the third stage. You know your friend’s good and bad things. At this stage, you actually respect the differences between you and your friend. Friendship that reached this stage will not break through out the life no matter how serious the issue goes between. We should learn to bring our every friendship, we make, to this stage. It will be again a ‘heaven on earth’.
