BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?

Subject: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: rock chick
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 06:32 PM

I'm curious about this, I thought I knew what a friend was, but then suddenly things change, why do we humans always mess things up unintentionally, (normally with the male species that is) by just been honest, obviously honestly is a problem I seem to have.

Just have to live with it I suppose!! Not going to change the way I am, not for anyone, well unless he really is 'special' and there aren't many 'special' ones around.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 06:34 PM

Silence for one thing. Two great friends can spend hours in almost complete silence without being uncomfortable. There's more, but that is truly an acid test.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 06:35 PM

Absolute sincerity.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: rock chick
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 06:37 PM

Never a truer word spaw and as for absolute sincerity i agree, if you can find it! and if you do, hold very tight to it cause it's VERY rare.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 06:57 PM

A little bit o this, a little bit o that
Some vinegar and piss, a goin up to bat
A person there a'liken, all through thick and thin
The handyman awakens the loves that you have been

Add some caring substance, intentions to be kind
A little dash of tuppence, a pinch of being blind
Add most of all reliance, for hard times reach us all
Such winning with, we triumph, Gazing o'r the jeering brawl
ttr

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 06:58 PM

The most genuine friendship comes from the instantaneous appreciation of silence, and also knowing when to speak. An hours silent companionship with someone with whom that bedrock has been reached is enough to make you feel wholly refreshed as though you had had the best dialogue of your life.

Honesty can be used as a reason for causing pain unnecessarily. Compassionate honesty speaks truth with attention to doing it in a way that is easily experienced by the hearer. Even your intimate friends have requirement s and ways they can hear better than others, so knowing and respecting those is certainly a part of true friendship, no?

FInally, even the best of friendships can wax and wane and change in the way of all things; it is not easy to learn to celebrate that face of things as well. But it is probably necessary to happiness.

A

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:03 PM

Actually, everyone IS special, but the question is...do they know that themselves, and do they also see that in you and in others?

To put it another way....there's only One of us here.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: khandu
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:05 PM

Amen to Spaw. That is a rare gem there, bro!

Some other attributes that I consider to be important:

Honesty; even if the truth hurts.
The ability to see beyond human weakness, in to the heart of the matter.
Grace
Mercy
Presence
Patience
Laughter
Optimism
Wisdom to know what to say and when to say it.
Wisdom to be quiet.

I have few Friends. But the Friends that I have are true Jewels. And I am thankful for each of them.

k

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Noreen
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:13 PM

We could have a long talk about this, rock chic! I think openness and honesty are necessary for a true friendship- but not everyone can cope with that....

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: smallpiper
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:15 PM

A friend is someone who accepts you and forgives you faults and all - they are rare and precious....... Hey Rock Chick if you stop thinking as the male as a different species then you might have more luck the species is the same its just the gender that is different - we are not all bastards and those that are, are not always bastards give some to get some girl
x

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:18 PM

I appreciate honesty above all other attributes. The key is, being honest without destroying the other person. If something a friend has done upsets you, instead of saying "YOU pissed me off, "etc. take responsibility for YOUR own feelings. Use "I" messages instead of :YOU" messages. say, "When you did that, I felt hurt, or upset."
Remember what Shakespere said, "Nothing is good or bad, thinking makes them so."
A good friend is always sensitive to the feelings of others. Not necessarily responsible for them, just sensitive to them.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:25 PM

Honesty is a great virtue, but silence can be priceless.

Years ago my college room-mate got involved with a real loser. Most of her friends and both her sisters repeatedly and honestly told her that he was trouble and that she would be a fool to marry him. Result -- she married him, out of sheer stubbornness, and because she was too embarrassed and harrassed to admit they were right! If more of her friends had provided non-judgemental love and support(which I felt was the only sane response to the situation, though I often cried about it when we were apart) rather than "honesty", she would have come to her senses. The marriage lasted less than three years. On the other hand, our friendship has lasted over thirty years, and she and I were both holding my father's hands when he breathed his last.

A friend accepts you for who you are, what you are, and as you are -- and is there for you through the good times and the bad -- and it's a two-way thing.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:38 PM

Excellent point, GUEST. On the rare occasions that I have met someone who gave me non-judgemental love and support, I NEVER forgot it. I know someone like that right now, and what a treasure that is!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:39 PM

Khandu, I feel you and I find the same thing in the few real friends we have........Would that we lived closer for I think we might find the same in each other.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: GUEST,herc
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:47 PM

I once learned, when the s*** came raining down, that I had two real friends who put on their boots to help me dig my way out of it. Although I thought I had some friends, I would never have guessed that it was these two separate "acquantances." (So: It may be that you don't know who your friends are, and don't have any real way to know. Hence the cliche: It is more important to be a friend. . . .)

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:52 PM

Look, Spaw, if silence is what you want, I am willing to come over and say nothing whatsoever to you for oh, a month or so, if I am provided with a comfortable bed and 3 good meals a day...

I don't like the TV on loud after 6 PM (or any time of the day or night, actually...so...consider giving it to the local Salvation Army before I come over).

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:53 PM

All of the above, but I think acceptance is the key. Silence and acceptance.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 07:53 PM

Your friends will know you the first minute you meet
than
your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

    Richard Bach


There is no need for an outpouring
of words to explain oneself to a friend.
Friends understand each other's thoughts
even before they are spoken.

      Susan Schultz


A true friend is somebody who can make us do what we can.

      Ralph Waldo Emerson


Friendship is the inexpressible
comfort of feeling safe with a person
having neither to weigh thoughts
nor measure words.

      George Eliot


This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

       William Shakespeare


My friend, you let me howl at the moon,
when it's cloudy outside.
You don't laugh or put me down
but stand by my side.

       Rustic Rebel

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 08:28 PM

My closest friend and I destroyed our friendship with an argument over FEEDING CATS! It took me a while to figure it out but what really happened was that neither one of us ever spoke up when the other offended, angered, hurt, etc. When we finally opened up, we both spewed a lot of stupid crap, none of which could be taken back.

So now, I say what is on my mind. And I expect a friend to do the same. Actually, I find this works best for me in all my relationships, personal and business. It probably explains why I get along so well with cats. Mine never miss an opportunity to let me know when they are annoyed.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 08:35 PM

Cats are great that way. Pity people are so afraid of what the other one might think. Cats never worry about what anyone else thinks, but if they like you, it's obvious.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 08:55 PM

A friend will help you move...

A GOOD friend will help you move a body...

:-)

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 09:02 PM

A friend will tell you that you have broccoli in your teeth.
A GOOD friend will pick it out for you.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: jets
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 09:10 PM

I lost a close friend yesterday.He died blowing snow.You speak of a friend who is silent,this guy never shut up ,but I knew that I was his friend, for he was always telling me that he was. And his actions proved that he was sincere. I am going to miss him big time.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 09:23 PM

Honesty isn't as simple as it sounds. At least, not in the application. When someone says, "I tell it like it is," I make for the nearest exit. I don't ever remember anyone using that term unless it was an excuse for saying something really nasty and destructive. And of course, the saying should be, " I tell it like I perceive it to be."

I read a wise commentary on love and honesty:

"Love without honesty is sentimentality
honesty without love is cruelty"

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 09:56 PM

Anyone ever owned a *piano shaped object* that used to be a *piano* that needs to be moved yet once again?

And then there's that phone call in the middle of the night that ol' John has taken his life and the funeral is day after tomorrow...

To me a friend is someone who is as loyal to you as you are to them. Loyality, these days is perhaps in short commodity but very much part of froendship.

Loyalty transcends politics and those things that tend to seperate people.

And when ya' strip off a few layers from loyality you have this wonderfull inner core of *love*. And when ya' got love at the center then it's purdy danged tough to get a crow bar between friends.

Though this ol' hillbilly has just been hanging round the Catbox for a relatively short time, there are sp many folks who I are my friends. Some I have met and otherds I haven't but hope to. I don't need to name you all because you know....

That's friendship...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Allan C.
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 11:00 PM

I believe it was Dylan who said something to the effect of: "I had to think up everything I ever said to you." I believe that thoughts between friends flow freely; that they don't have to spend a lot of effort on trying to figure out what to say or how to say it. The level of trust and honesty between them allows that freedom.

I am not sure I could write a shopping list of other features of a good friendship. Communication of the sort I have described seems to me to be the foundation for all the other things I might list.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: mg
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 02:01 AM

I think when the chips are down...or you are in a position of needing something that will really inconvenience them...like when my real friend picked me up at 3 a.m. at the bus station...when you take them into your house when it is too small but they have no job...when you help each other move, go through a divorce, a death, etc....of course you have to have some pleasant times too...hopefully fun and laughter...mg

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: GUEST,Raedwulf
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 02:12 AM

Friendship?

Being there when they're needed. Even if they need to be somewhere else...

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Catherine Jayne
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 04:06 AM

I had a friendship that fell apart last year after 21 years. As we were growing up we were close and our families knew each other...our fathers worked together at the Pit. I went to uni and we didn't see each other as often as we used to. Then I moved back and we picked up the friendship fromw where we left off ....it was bizarre, just like I hadn't moved away and we decided to share a house. Anyhow the friendship broke down to lack of trust. Things, money etc would go missing and she began to try and turn my other friends against me by spreading ridiculus lies about me. It was a good friend who eventually told me what had actually been going on. And Yes it hurt alot and to a certain extent it still does. My REAL friends rallied round me and helped me through it all and TOLD me the truth.

A true friend will be honest with you but the friendship needs trust to survive.

cat

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 04:16 AM

All of what Spaw said, plus I think one of the best things about good friends is their ability to listen well, to really hear what one is saying (even reading between the lines so to speak), as well as be comfortable with shared silence. In good listening, a friend can help one articulate their fears, hopes, desires, joys, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: JennyO
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 06:45 AM

So many wonderful answers on here already!

To me, the most important thing about being a friend, is to accept each other as you are, with all your faults, unconditionally. This creates an atmosphere of trust, where you will both feel free to be your authentic self. This does not mean that it is okay to behave in a way that affects the other person in a negative way. You can be honest and say how you feel, but that is about their behaviour, not an attack on who they are. If you do it with love, they will know. Your friend is someone you can count on to be there and support you without making judgments, whatever you are going through. In an ideal relationship of any sort, you further and support each other's spiritual growth in an atmosphere of love and trust.

Unfortunately I have had a couple of bad experiences lately with so-called friends who chose to pass judgment on me as a person, and it seems that these were people who did not have a very high opinion of humankind in the first place. None of us is perfect, and that is exactly why we would do well not to be so judgmental.

If more people chose to focus on what is good about the world and others, we might have fewer wars.

EVEN WHIRLED PEAS!!!!!!!       {:-)

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 08:18 AM

Dang, Bobert, if you didn't actually utter the forbidden word. Why is everyone so awkward about saying that a good friendship is based on love? If a friendship is anchored in love, as the Carter Family put it, honesty will only be expressed as a way of helping a friend and forgiveness goes with the package... even helping someone to move or agreeing on how to feed cats. In order to have a true friendship, you need that selflessness that only love can give.

And of faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love.

Without love, none of us is good enough to BE a true friend.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Partridge
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 09:01 AM

There is a saying, "To have good friends you must be a good friend"

A good friend for me is someone that I can trust and trusts me, someone who keeps me grounded, stops me doing some of the daft things I'm prone to do!
Someone who is there in a time of need, and someone who will call me in their time of need.
Someone who probably shares some common ground with me.
Someone who I can use as a sounding board and vice versa.
Someone with a sense of humour, who considers my feelings.

cheers

Pat x

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: GUEST,Walking Eagle
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 10:23 AM

Yes, love is definately needed.

I believe that a friend can be judgemental as long as they have the ability to keep their judgements to themselves when needed and tell the person when their opinions are needed and called for.

I'll throw this one in the stew. Trust. A friend should be trustworthy. Now some friends can be trustworthy for some things, such as not being a gossip, and others can be trustworthy for other things, such as showing up on time for an event. You have to make the choice there.

Also, a true friend will tell you when you have body odor!

W.E.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 10:28 AM

Yep. Love is the key. It's also the key to everything else, as well as friendship.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Kim C
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 10:43 AM

I was a grown-up person before I realized it was okay to say I love you to someone who was not a spouse or a family member. Some people think this is weird, that love only has to do with blood or romance. It doesn't.

Acceptance is an important factor, because people are all different. I talk a lot, one of my friends doesn't. He moved a couple of years ago so we mostly communicate by e-mail now. And there have been times when I got really frustrated because I thought he had forgotten me - only because he isn't as chatty as me. Then it occurred to me - hey, you big dummy, he's always been there, in his own way, even if it wasn't exactly the way YOU wanted.

So if we want our friends to accept us, we have to do the same for them. Sometimes it's hard!

I have come to realize, though, that your true friends are always your friends, no matter how far away they get, no matter how much time passes.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 11:25 AM

jets, I am sorry to hear about your friend. May your memories of him bring you some comfort in your loss.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Morticia
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 12:11 PM

A true friend is the one you call when you have just made a colossal idiot of yourself and have to tell someone.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: kendall
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 12:32 PM

You have my sympathy, Jets. Was it anyone I might know, or know of? Do you know about the new coffee house at the Harpswell Community ctr. on Saturday eve?

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 01:24 PM

I did a workshop in a folk festival once titled Love Without Romance.
No one could figure out what that would be, other than picking up a woman in a bar and taking her to a motel. I don't remember all the songs we did, but I figured that I had me a dog and his name was Blue was a song about love, or even the song about my old 51 Chevy. Maybe I should start a thread about it... it would be amazing to see how many songs are about love, that aren't about romantic love..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 01:35 PM

I've lost a friend or two over the years, sometimes through my fault or my immaturity, sometimes because because we just drifted apart, once because I realized that I was being used (and THAT really hurt!), and, most recently, to death.

I grew up with Bob. We smoked our first cigarettes together; I eventually smoked a pipe and back in '85 I stopped. Bob didn't. Maybe, like so many others I've met, his experiences in Vietnam (as a medic) had something to do with it. But no matter how much time passed before we'd talk or see each other, it was like no time had passed at all. Three years ago, I got a phone call telling me that he'd died. I called his brother and learned that Bob had succumbed to stomach cancer. He left two children and a wife and a lot a good memories of better times than these.

Last June I visited his grave and left him something he'd have appreciated. Put it way down into the dirt so that it would be there.
No, it wasn't a cigarette.

Check out the DT for "Sully's Bucket" or "Ramblin' Boy."

MAD

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: rock chick
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 04:31 PM

Everyone has something different for an answer, of course all of you are right,
Some years ago I thought I had a true friend, but then she and 'someone' totally deceived me, after that it was hard to trust anyone again, but I have now, (I think) but it taken it's time.

I do have two, no, three, truly good friends, and I would do anything, anytime, anyplace for them, both female and male.

I lost a truly good friend through illness, though I don't think of him as gone, I'm sure he is still there watching over me, what he used to say to me still helps. A true friend never really goes they are always there

You are all very wise my friends.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 04:51 PM

So Morty, I'm waiting for your call!!!

A real friend is someone who is still there despite you having made a colossal, internationally public fuckwit of yourself.

Shame you can usually only count them on the thumbs of one hand.


LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 05:50 PM

Ah Liz...not again????

Keeping a confidence fits into the picture too. Trust.

The most beautiful friendship I have seen in many years is the one between AllanC and his friend David. The two were worlds apart in almost every way but loved each other and enjoyed each other openly. Hope I haven't embarrassed Allan here.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Neighmond
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 07:20 PM

Well

I would call a friend one who likes your back as well as your face.

FWIW

Chaz

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 03 - 08:50 PM

Liz:

Tell all!! Intenrational?? This has got to be a tale for the history books, no?? :>)

Anyway, dear, I am sure you will bounce back in fine fettle and keep on charging!


A

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Noreen
Date: 31 Jan 03 - 06:30 AM

Not going to change the way I am, not for anyone, well unless he really is 'special' and there aren't many 'special' ones around.

So, rock chick, you would change if the circumstances were right? Even your honesty? You say above, honestly (sic) is a problem I seem to have.

Seems to me that honesty is a problem for many people. And as I posted above, on 6th January:
We could have a long talk about this, rock chic! I think openness and honesty are necessary for a true friendship- but not everyone can cope with that....

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Trevor
Date: 31 Jan 03 - 06:50 AM

I go with the honesty bit as well - loving honesty though, the sort that results in feeling cared for as opposed to the sort that makes you scratch your head and wonder why the 'friend' is there at all.

Particularly, honesty about feelings. I remember somebody, after eight years, telling me that 'the first couple of years were OK, but then.......'

I'm also sure that true friendship (love) is unconditional, and, I suspect, probably based more on want than need - although I'd be really interested to hear others' opinions on that.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: songs2play
Date: 31 Jan 03 - 06:59 AM

I'm lucky, I married my best friend 25 years ago, and she's still my best friend.

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Noreen
Date: 31 Jan 03 - 07:21 AM

Thanks, chaps. Lots to think about there, Trev, maybe we'll have another deep conversation in the conservatory sometime. Give my love to Helen.
Snowed in yet?

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: JudeL
Date: 31 Jan 03 - 07:22 AM

A true friend may disagree with your choices but will still be there to help pick up the pieces when it all goes wrong. They don't need to be mind readers as some appear to have suggested but they are the people you can laugh with, cry with, accept you as you are AND encourage you not to accept false restrictions on what you dare to try to accomplish. They will help you face the mirror of your soul and deal with the nitty gritty of reality. But the most important thing of all is that it is a 2 way street, friendship is what you offer and in the offering you open yourself to the possibility of pain but without that leap of faith, friendship is a non starter. So perhaps the question should not so much be "what makes a friend a real friend?" as "how can I be a real friend ?"

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Jan 03 - 06:02 PM

Jude, have you been reading 'People's Friend' in the waiting room again??

A true friend is someone who takes your welfare into account when she's really worried about something else.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: JudeL
Date: 01 Feb 03 - 09:21 AM

Not since my last visit to the dentist ... and I don't know which was worse. I think it may be the cumulative effect of all those years having to write reports in "politically correct social worker speak". Where instead of calling someone "a violent nutcase that keeps trying to thump everyone" you might write that "this client has extreemly challenging behaviour and staff should be aware that he has a very accurate right fist and his left isn't any less accurate".

Subject: RE: BS: What makes a friend, a real friend?
From: gnu
Date: 01 Feb 03 - 01:00 PM

Old one (and rather blue) but... a real buddy is one who goes out and gets two BJ's, comes back and gives you one. I first heard that one years ago from a Newf who would greet his buddies with, "Watcha got in yer mout' me ol' cock ?" An evening of brews with him was a constant belly laugh, if you could stand his warped sense of humour. Odd that I never saw him get into a toss, even with strangers in the roughest of pubs. Laugh and...