We all grew up learning “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” There are a lot of people who will be with you when you are happy, or celebrating; but the real friends are those who you can count on in the darkest hours. Someone who will be there with you when you are sad and lonely, when nothing in the world is going right, when you are sick, when you are caught in an emergency, or even if there is a sudden rodent attack in your house. These same people are also the ones who would smile with you in your happy times, make you feel special on your birthday, celebrate when you get a raise, or just ‘do nothing’ with you on a lazy Sunday. This is my idea of friendship, and books, newspapers, the television, movies, people around, everyone seem to agree with it, at least in principle.
But when we come to the practical world, how many of us know even one person who lives up to the definition of a friend? It is true that idealism doesn’t have a place in the real world, and like there is no ideal person, there can be no ideal friend? Given all that, is it still so difficult to be 20% of the ideal?
There are so many different types of friends these days.
1)Lets Meet Up friends: There are friends who you just go out with—to parties, to movies, and just to hang out . They guarantee a great fun time, but never ever ever try to get serious or sentimental/emotional with them. They only want to see the happy-smiley side of you.
2)Hi-Hello friends: There are the “hi-hello” friends, who you just keep face with as you might bump into them in a common friend’s party. Conversations rarely ever get beyond “Whats up?” or “How are you?”
3)Frenemies: There are friends who are really enemies disguised as friends. I read a newspaper article which terms them “frenemies”. These frenemies will be absolutely sweet to you, will show you that they care, but in truth, all they are doing is ruining some part of your life behind your back. The “stabbed-in-the-back” feeling is most associated with them.
4)FBs: These days you also have fuck buddies. These are people with whom you have a “no strings attached”, purely physical relationship. I feel horrible even saying the term. What can be more derogatory than treating someone like an object and then calling him/her a “buddy”?
5)2 am friends: These are people whom you probably know for a long long time, but don’t meet often. Yet, when at odd hours when you can’t sleep and need to talk to someone, you can always give them a call, without any fear of rebuke.
6)IM friends: These are people with whom you have an excellent conversation over Instant Messaging/internet chat, but whenever there is a face-to-face meeting, the conversation runs dry. Infact, you do not even want to meet them in person. They are very good to pass away that idle evening when you have no plans to go out anywhere.
7)Facebook friends: This is the funniest. People who have never met you and probably don’t even know your last name, can be added to your “friends” list. A list which runs longer than your annual grocery bill maybe. The more names you have in your list, the more popular you are supposed to be. One of my friends has 514, and still keeps saying he is very lonely. Hard to imagine why!!
8)Chuddy buddies: They are your childhood friends. People you grew up with, your first best friend from nursery who managed to keep in touch with you. Even when you meet them after ages, you can strike up a conversation as if you had just met yesterday. That’s the special quality of chuddy buddies; and they’ll always wish you well. Rare and lucky are those who have such friends.
9)Best friend: I am still trying to figure out who a “best friend” is. When we were kids, it was so easy to define. The kid who sat next to you in class, with whom you shared your tiffin, and probably went back home in the same bus. The one for whom you would make a birthday card, and save your special chocolates for. But now, with our lives so complex, how do we know who is a best friend? Is he the person who’ll be with you all your life? Is he going to be super-critical of your wrongdoings, yet provide a shoulder to lean on when you cry? What is the ONE quality that would separate him from everyone else and make him special—“best”? I still don’t know…
I have long given up my search for a true friend. Like most of my other pursuits in life, this also seemed to be really idealistic and hence futile. We do have to live with all these kinds of friends, whether we like it or not. Everything changes, and so does people in our lives…they also come and go. So there’s no point fretting over who will last and who won’t. Its good enough to have a friend who’ll drop you to the airport at 4 am; or someone who’ll just loan you 50K in a blink so that you can buy something you really wanted; or someone who’ll write funny emails to you just to brighten up your day; or someone who’ll agree to spend a whole day in a govt. office to get your work done. Its better to see the silver lining. Friendship is that special ‘x’ factor that makes your life at least tolerable. I am lucky enough.
