Learning About Friendship

WHY BE FRIENDLY, AND WITH WHOM? HOW CAN YOU AVOID DANGEROUS FRIENDSHIPS?

DESPITE the scientific changes that have come over the world in recent years, people still need people. For most persons this need is not satisfied by mere acquaintances, but goes much deeper than that. It reaches out for a friend who can be trusted with one’s most precious thoughts. Its want is for a confidant who is responsible, trustworthy and who will respond when one is in need.

The ideal situation is when most of one’s emotional needs are satisfied within a Christian family relationship. Children who have devoted parents and loving brothers and sisters have good reason to be quite content. Sustained by this warmth and association, a child can grow up happy and well balanced without always having to look elsewhere to satisfy his emotional needs.

However, even when friendship in the home is not lacking, children may feel the urge to embark on new friendships. The stimulation provided by other children near their age can be beneficial. On the other hand, lack of friendship inside and outside the family relationship causes many youngsters to become lonely. This is a common problem among teen-agers.

Parents who are aware of this try to satisfy their children’s growing need for friendship. One way they can do this is by developing a closer and more confidential relationship with them. Teen-agers especially find that life takes on a happier tone when parents give them a chance to express their views, and help them to work out their doubts and uncertainties. In frank discussions the children can be fortified with encouragement and counsel.

There are also times when the friendship of another youth can provide the needed encouragement. Wrote a middle-aged man of his more youthful days: “As a teen-ager I was often moody, for reasons I no longer recall. During one particularly bad week when I was at my lowest ebb, thinking myself ugly, misunderstood and unlikable, the phone rang. A high-school lad . . . was on the line. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked gently when he heard my voice. ‘You sound as if you didn’t have a friend in the world—I’m not dead yet!’ A glib, graceful phrase, perhaps—but in twenty-five years I have not forgotten it, how I sat up straighter, smiled and felt alive again that night.”

How to Become a Friend

Some people seem to have a talent for making friends. Others need to learn the art of friendship, and they do. Still others are neither gifted in friendship nor quick to learn its ways. They need help. Whatever the case may be, to be a friend one has to care about people, what they think, how they feel and why they suffer. One must be sympathetically interested in things people do. One must accept their faults as well as their virtues. One must be willing to make sacrifices and help others to achieve their goals.

The American poet and essayist Ralph W. Emerson once said: “The only way to have a friend is to be one.” Help someone, if you want a friend. That should be easy, because there are so many people today who need help. Where there is work to be done, volunteer to do it. Working brings people together.

Invite people to your home for a meal or simply to share conversation with you over a cup of tea or coffee. Simply say, “How about coming to our place Saturday night?” Even if it is not convenient for them to come this time, at least they will know that you would like to know them better.

Perhaps the very beginning of a friendship is the willingness to say “hello” first. You must show that you like people. If you greet them with a smile and with a cheerful salutation, it may surprise you what response you will get.

What Is Needed to Keep Up Friendship

Friendship can be likened to a plant that has to be cultivated. It must be watered and tended if it is to produce sweet and wholesome fruit.

Maintaining a friendship is not automatic. It takes planning. On our weekly list of things to be done, we might well assign deeds of friendship. We could write down the names of those we would like to visit or telephone or drop a note to, or send a gift. How easy it is to neglect friends just because they are friends. Many who know the art of friendship plan to have dinner once a week or once a month with certain friends.

An aid to preserving friendships is doing things together. One friend taught another how to cook. After that, the delights of cooking enriched their conversations and their lives. Others have encouraged their friends to go places with them and to do things together, such as visiting museums, taking walks through parks or having picnics together.

Distance may prevent friends from getting together, but a warm letter can bridge the gap. A telephone call will remind them that you care. It may be possible to spend a vacation with an old friend and renew the friendship. Often reunions are most heartwarming.