1. Tim Goodwin

    Tim Goodwin Banned

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    What Does Being A Friend Mean To You?

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Tim Goodwin, Feb 20, 2016.

    When someone says I am your friend, you’re my friend, let's be friends, friends to the end, friend me and so forth what are they saying? What is a friend? Who is a friend? The word friend is bantered around quite a bit and so I just wondered what most people feel or think a friend truly is. For instance are they your neighbors, your pets, your co-workers or fellow team mates? Just who are these friends we hold so dear?


    What does having or being a friend mean to you?
     
  2. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    This just brought me back to The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask where the Moon Children asked Link roughly that very same question about friendship. To this day, I still don't have an answer. What is a friend? Who is a friend? It varies from person to person. To some, a friend is that stoic person who, while not exactly a party animal, is their personal Rock of Gibraltar, something for them to vent their emotions on without fear of judgment, or on the flip-side, help them forget their troubles for just a little while. To others, a friend is the quirky Internet dude/dudette that you talk to on the forums. Some have friends they meet periodically at a favorite bar/pub, others have friends they meet at the local store.

    I suppose it all just depends on the individual person, and what sort of friends they have, what sort of friends they need.
     
  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I think that there's a spectrum that goes from "acquaintance that I don't dislike" to "dear friend that I'd die for", and that different people start using the word "friend" at different points on that spectrum--and that each individual may also use it differently depending on the context.

    I realize that that's not very responsive. I guess I'm saying that without more context, I can't really say what "friend" means.
     
  4. VynniL

    VynniL Contributor Contributor

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    This is a question that I've been talking to my husband about. To me a real friend is just someone who has a genuine interest in you, where you both enjoy spending time with each other sharing experiences and ideas, and who will have your back. This doesn't mean that they will agree with you when you are wrong, but that they have tried to understand and appreciate who you are enough to understand where you are coming from. Friends always try to be supportive.

    A supposed friend spends all the time talking about themselves, only contacts you when they want something, and would never speak up on your behalf if they felt your opinion was against popular opinion, even if they might agree with you privately. I might be their friend because I fulfil a need for them, but to me they are just an acquaintance which I eventually run out of time and patience for. Over the years I've only kept a few friends. For me trust and loyalty are a very important elements of friendship.
     
  5. Sack-a-Doo!

    Sack-a-Doo! Contributor Contributor

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    I'm still puzzling over that one.
     
  6. Samurai Jack

    Samurai Jack Active Member

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    When you call me, I'm there. Doesn't matter for what.
     
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  7. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    No such thing as friends. There are only acquaintances, partners, lovers, family, and kindred spirits.
     
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  8. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Friends are people at your job, and others who tolerate your voice in the pursuit of your duties - perhaps men at the petrol station or staff at the corner shop. Other people who do actually claim friendships don't love their partner enough, or their families, and are viewed rightly as suspicious and predatory individuals.

    Children also have friends for their play, and adolescents have buddies as they explore the meaning of life that one generally comprehends round about the age of thirty-six, before or after your mid-life crisis/the affair, and also molester scientists have friends because they can't have girlfriends at all, and also women have friends.
     
  9. Tenderiser

    Tenderiser Not a man or BayView

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    I don't have a definition for it, but I know it when I see it.
     
  10. Wild Knight

    Wild Knight Senior Member

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    What is a friend?

    I've had people that I wanted to be friends with, but I'm not sure if I had ever had any. I only know what fair-weather friends are, and lately, I've cut them from my life. I don't need half-hearted "friends".

    Depressive question of the day, and one that I can't comprehend. Therefore, it's unanswerable.
     
  11. Lifeline

    Lifeline South. Supporter Contributor

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    A friend is someone who has a place in my heart. With all that this implies. This is a gift I can give and it does not presupposes that he/she gives the gift back - but it has never happened to me that this gift was not shared in the making.

    This is a commitment that I freely undertake. On time, on help, on whatever is asked for. I don't need to explain it, it is understood that it is there. And it is not time- or action-dependent.

    Note, a facebook 'friend' is another story entirely. This is NOT A FRIEND!

    And I confess to a bit of puzzlement to find such a question apparently difficult to answer. Sure, the scale might be a bit different for different people, but the underlying concept should not be. In my humble opinion.
     
  12. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I completely agree with this. English, for all its bewildering surfeit of individual single-word nouns, is relatively lacking in words to describe different kinds and levels of emotional relationship/attachment. In another thread posted yesterday a member asked about close emotional relationships that aren't of the "lovers" variety, and do such things exist. They do exist, but we don't have good words to refer to them. I am of the opinion that being in love with someone can exist outside of a romantic context. My favorite example is Frodo and Samwise. Nothing sexual, no 'hands in the pants romance', but to miss the fact that Frodo and Samwise are very much in love (of a different kind) is to miss the point of the whole story. Their love for each other is what saves Middle Earth. But there's no commonly used, commonly understood word in English for their love. Any existing word we use either falls woefully short of the mark, or implies things that aren't there. And in this way, linguistically, we deny ourselves the idea and the fact that two people can be in love in this different way.

    So, yeah, a "friend" is many different things, at different levels, at different depths, and sadly, our language and culture (emotionally repressed as it is) lumps all of it under the simple blanket term "friend".
     
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  13. KaTrian

    KaTrian A foolish little beast. Contributor

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    Well, according to Facebook I have 126 friends.

    But in reality most of them are acquaintances, colleagues, training partners, family, old class mates with whom you, for whatever reason, remain in semi-contact and so on. There's no one on my list I don't know on some level (I leave dubious friend requests pending instead of rejecting them -- why??), while some people seem to gather "friends" they don't even know, resulting in crazy numbers of friends.

    So the Facebook definition of a friend is definitely misleading and makes me look more industrious social life wise than I really am. Maintaining friends is hard work!

    But I'd say, for me, a friend is someone with whom I can be my weird, unapologetic self without reservation as they won't judge, they know better than that. I also don't stress around them, and hanging out with them doesn't feel like a fuqing chore. I guess that's my criteria.
     
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  14. Greyditch

    Greyditch New Member

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    Friendship is a hard thing to define, and everyone has their own opinion on what constitutes a friend. I probably can't define it properly, but if I had to, I'd say that a friend is someone that genuinely enjoys your company, and vice versa. Someone you can voice your opinions to, free of any judgement. And someone that is there for you when you actually need them, and vice versa. If you need a lift, if you need advice, if you need help with something like ripping the floor boards up for your renovation, or if they just need a mate around because they've just broken up with their partner and need help dealing with it. And vice versa.

    Been there, done that. True friends are just about nearly impossible to come by, but if you do manage to find them, they're worth a million bucks.
     

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