Definition Essay Friendship

I chose the term friendship but contemplated with choosing the term addiction from the list, in my opinion friendship is much harder to define. I believe everyone has their own version of what friendship is, thus the reason why it is so hard to define. The word “friend” and the suffix “-ship” makes up the word friendship. By definition “friend” means “a person whom you share a bond of mutual affection for”, and “-ship” is just a suffix for nouns. Once added together to create “friendship”, the definition changes to “the state of being a friend” or “a friendly relation or intimacy”. Friendship means to me unfiltered truth, companionship, loyalty and sacrifice.
Not always is a friend someone with whom there is a mutual affection, but rather
due to unforeseen circumstances that creates a bond as a form of respect. Due to that respect, a call to my focused and unbiased attention is spent dedicated towards answering the needs of that individual, whom I call a friend. I find that I will often sacrifice doing things that would otherwise distract me, to rather spend it dedicated to assist a fellow human being whom I deeply respect. In the sharing of these experiences, companionship is realized and a mutual loyalty to call upon one another forms, in which we then call upon each other’s attention for less important matters. For example, once a promise or a commitment is made to make available one’s time, it is important that a friend follow up on that commitment, lest jeopardize the friendship. Lastly, a friend does not lie or blur the truth to one another. I have chosen to speak about this topic over all others as I am still learning how to come to terms with what it means to be a friend and at the same time be befriended. For example, I have had the experience of tight bonds in many forms throughout high school. I shared comradery with my football team mates. I also shared an affinity of likeminded individuals with my involvement in the Boy Scouts. Lastly, I developed a bond with classmates with whom I found it easy to get along with for no other reason than we “clicked”. Over time the test of friendship is adversity. You know when you have a person that you can call friend because they will go the distance or wait all night, and give up their weekend to help pull through a difficult situation. Everybody feels friendly at a party, but it’s the ones that stay behind to clean up the mess that I call my friend. Because of my high standards and ethics instilled in me as a Boy Scout, I feel that I am a good candidate to be a friend to many; however, I find myself at odds when not everyone appreciates a good friend or is willing to reciprocate with the same courtesy.
For example, how is it that someone that I have spent hours with day after day in the classroom and again after school sitting side by side at each other’s kitchen table, helping one another with school priorities as well as personal priorities, but yet find out that the very same person has vandalized my house. The trigger for this was a refusal to extend a courtesy to move in together after high school. I found that I was unable to make that commitment, so I was honest and expressed that I could not make that level of a commitment. Granted that this friend assumed that I would agree to the co-habitation and the financial security that comes with it. Easy to say that my refusal then affected all of his other plans for how he envisioned his future. Given the magnitude, I could see how he felt justified in affecting my current residence as I robbed him of his hope for a residence with me elsewhere. However, his actions are a criminal offense, destruction of personal property; whereas, my actions are not a punishable crime. My actions were rational and fair, based on sound principles of money management. My actions were not fantastical or emotional, and his reactions were. Needless to say, we are no longer
friends. I have find it difficult to understand how friendship can be fickle in many ways. Going back to my definition of friendship from the first paragraph. Friendship means to me unfiltered truth, companionship, loyalty and sacrifice. Yet, none of these things matter if the same actions are not exercised by both parties. In that regard, friendship is more like a business partnership. Unless both parties agree to honor the mutual commitment to the friendship, the reciprocal benefits of friendship are not realized and neither party will be happy. Leaving the question, what does it really mean to be a friend?