friendship (友谊)
what is friendship?
It is an in-depth relationship combining trust, support, communication, loyalty, understanding, empathy, and intimacy.
These are certainly aspects of life that all of us crave.
Being able to trust and relax with your friend is a big part of friendship.
Remember when you were young and went with a friend to her grandma's for the week-end. It was fun but when you got home, home was wonderful. Your feeling was "I'm home. I can relax now."
That's what a friendship should be.
You go out into the world and do your best. You have your ups and downs, your problems and triumphs, your fun and tribulations. You charm and you perform.
Then you come "home" to a friend. You can relax, put up your feet; you are relieved. If you still have to be charming and/or performing, it's not a relief.
Friendship is a comfy situation like home. You get home, kick off your shoes, relax and sigh, "Ahh, home."
But no one can form a friendship until he/she realizes that the basis of being friends is meeting the needs of the other person. One must be a friend to have one.
Never forget that friends relate. Relating is the basis of friendship.
Building Friendships from Casual Friends
Friends and Friendship
Self-Disclosure builds friendships.
Self-disclosure is usually the first step in establishing a confidant. And it is scary because of the potential rejection factor. Do it anyway!
Start by sharing a few private thoughts and/or feelings with one person you might want for a close friend. If the person is responsive, he/she will usually share a personal thought or two with you.
If he/she is not responsive to your overtures, don't think of this as a rejection.People may be non-responsive for reasons of their own or merely as a perception of yours. Nevertheless, they can't be rejecting you because they don't even know you yet.
Listening and acknowledging builds friendships.
Often when your child, lover/partner, or friend tells you a story or voices a complaint, he/she is just asking for acknowledgment.
This does not mean that he/she wants agreement or compliance; it merely indicates a desire to be heard and understood.
Try these three steps to acknowledgment:
1. Repeat back.
2. Don't invalidate.
3. Don't try to change.
4. Don't problem solve.
Many conflicts in your personal relationships can be avoided if you will take the time to acknowledge other's feelings and points of view. For more information about acknowledgement, click here.
Listening and attending builds friendships.
Paying attention to someone is called "attending." It means that your ears, your eyes, your body and your feelings are all focused on that person at one time. Attending is a very important part of any relationship. It includes:
1. Being there physically
2. Focusing
3. Eye contact
Looking at and focusing on another person shows that you are "there for him/her." For more information on attending, click here.
Talking Is a Primary Building Block of Friendships.
Talking is an integral component of friendship.
When a friend talks and reveals ideas or feelings, he/she is expecting shared information in return. When the talk is not equal, the person talking feels as if the listener is uninterested.
In fact, the person who is always the listener is really playing the role of a counselor, not a friend. Anytime you have been talking for more than a minute or two without participation from the person you are talking to, you are lecturing, bossing, or putting that person in the role of a counselor.
Loyalty, Equality, and Respect build friendship.
Friends are equal. Without equality, you can't have a close friendship.
Friends are loyal and trustworthy. No one can confide in someone they can not trust to be loyal and to keep his/her secrets.
Friends have similar values. Our value system is so important to us that our friends' values must be close to our own or we will not have respect for this friend.
Maintaining friendship is Crucial; Best Friends Take Time.
Friends and Friendship
Best friends require one-on-one contact to survive. Telephone calls and getting together are musts for best friends to continue.
In fact, probably the quickest way to end a friendship is to neglect it and sever contact.
Yet it is hard to make time in a busy day and busy life to maintain our friends. But you don't have to have hours to spare to maintain a friendship.
Instead try the following to keep from neglecting your friends:
Send frequent email. Email is a boon for a quick note.
Call once a week. Telephone calls do not take long.
Keep in touch through brief messages left on answering machines.
Send an occasional card. Funny and/or appropriate cards take minutes to choose and address.
Exercise together. We all have to exercise. It is more fun with a friend, plus, there is no better place for talking than a walk in the park.
Clean house together. This is another must do and two makes cleaning fun instead of boring.
Send pictures. A picture is still worth a thousand words.
Go to lunch at least once a month. More often would be better.
Follow the advice of Victoria Rayner, author of The Survival Guide for Today's Career Woman:
Be a good listener; refrain from offering advice or moralizing.
Respect your friend's point of view. Different personalities can complement each other; it isn't always necessary to see eye to eye.
Never betray a trust. Trust, when violated, can ruin even the best friendship.
Support and praise your friends; ignore their failures and imperfections.
Never resent a friend's success. Instead, strive to admire her achievements.
Flexibility is always important for maintaining friendships. Be understanding when your friend has a last minute change in plans. Learn to accept "I'm sorry to cancel, but we will have another time together Sunday."
When paths begin to separate (you are married; he isn't or you have a baby; she is still childless) at forks in the road of life, that is the most important time of all to stay in touch with friends.
When there is conflict, it must be resolved for friendship to continue. Confrontation is one way to resolve conflict. Talking it out is another.
A cooling-off period is sometimes necessary when conflict has occurred. Once you reinitiate conflict, it may not even be necessary to discuss the conflict.
Friendships Do End - Losing Friends.
Friends Part and Even Best Maintained Friendships End:
Losing Friends
Carole King's song, "You've Got A Friend" promises "Winter, spring, summer, or fall--all you've got to do is call--and I'll be there." Many people expect that their friends will always be there. They expect friendship to last forever.
Yet, friendships end and friends part company everyday. Unfortunately, even the best maintained friendships can end.
Many end because of a change in personality or lifestyle when friends just drift apart and fade away with time. There is a retreat from self-disclosure and seeking out each other's company. Avoidance begins. The friendship slowly loses importance and finally disappears.
Sue said, "The end of our friendship was a gradual thing. I moved from one side of the metroplex to the other. We had over an hour's drive to see each other. For a year or so, we met religiously. Then our friendship began to taper off."
John wrote, "I didn't even know the friendship was over until I caught myself thinking of Alan as a former friend. In the past tense rather than the present."
Pat explained, "We started seeing each other less and less. The friendship was just over."
Other friendships break up suddenly from a disagreement or move to another town.
Paul said, "When I moved to Seattle after college, our friendship abruptly died. We were both struggling with new jobs and didn't keep in touch. Now that friendship is so dead, I don't even call him when I go home."
Sandy wrote, "That was the last straw for our friendship. I never spoke to Lisa again. It's like we were never friends."
Bob Carver, Dallas psychotherapist, says, "A friendship or any other relationship fails because of three things:
Unexpressed expectations,
Undelivered communication,
And/or thwarted attention."
Yet the biggest threat to a friendship is change.
For example, moving from single life to coupled life has a great effect on friendship. Coupled persons often feel their single friends act interested in them only when a romantic prospect is not in sight. They may feel jealousy for or neglected by a single friend's new social life. The single friend may feel awkward and withdraw from a world of twosomes. Divorced and widowed people often have a feeling of being abandoned by old friends.
Lillian Rubin in her book Just Friends says, "Thus generally it's true that friends accept each other so long as they both remain essentially the same as they were when they met, or change in similar directions. If they change or grow in different or incompatible ways, the friendship most likely will be lost."
Regardless of why, when, or how friendships end, there is always some pain of loss to assimilate. When nothing can be done to mend the friendship, it is important to grieve and feel the pain fully. Then move on to enhance another friendship or build entirely new friendships.
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What is a true friendship (什么是真正的友谊)
In the dictionary, friendship is defined as the state of being friends. What are friends? What makes a good friend? To me a friend is someone who cherishes the special moments and memories of life with another person. A friend is a trustworthy companion. Friendship is a relationship which takes time to build. There are many steps and stages to achieving a true friendship. However, one can think building a friendship is like planting a garden.
For many people, planting a garden represents, devotion and leisure. It takes patience to grow a garden, frustrations and hardships are also involved in the process. Firstly the seed is planted. The seed builds the foundation of a strong and stable plant. It has to be taken care of and watered daily. Then the shoots start sprouting, the plant is finally flourishing. One can see day by day the garden maturing. Then one day the garden starts to wilt, its dying. One has to tend to it and have the patience and determination to bring it back to life. It frustrates one to see the insects and predators preying on the beautiful garden that once existed. But hard work and devotion regains the gardens beauty and gives it life again. Soon a shoots blossom a bloom into beautiful flowers. The charm and divine beauty of the garden is a wonderful enlightening sight. Building a friendship has similar characteristics. One meets a person and plants the seed of friendship. The friendship b! uilds and continues to grow stronger. It requires devotion of time and patience to achieve peak communication between the two companions. The struggle to keep a solid friendship includes many obstacles and hardships. But compromising, devotion and the willingness to endure is bound to payoff in the end. As I once read It takes a long time to grow an old friendship. Friendship has its good and bad times. There comes a time when the relationship is just not working. It is preoccupied with disagreements and quarrels. It is on the verge of destruction. One must have the patience to deal with such frustrations. The willingness and determination to get the relationship working again come within. Compromising and persistence rebuilds the friendship and is once again reestablished. As I once read Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant. The friendship is blooming and is finally on its peak. Its great to have a strong and stable relationship which allows the two companions to share the joys and memories of life together. If building a friendship can be compared to planting a garden then perhaps some of its frustrations and problems can be better understood. The true meaning of friendship is achieved by understanding its relativity to planting a garden. A person who builds a friendship as planting a garden can overcome the obstacles of it very easily. The symbolism becomes clear and precise. Friendship and planting a garden can both be said as give and take. The more effort and persistence put into them the more stronger and everlasting happiness can be accomplished
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