The Maintenance of Friendship

張貼日期：Jan 05, 2021 4:26:33 AM

Naomi Ren

I have not contacted my friend Emma for a long time, and it feels like she has forgotten me. Her Instagram stories often post pictures of hanging out with others, but there is no me. I am thinking about what is wrong between us. I think the answer is we did not maintain our friendship properly. The friendship is very frail, so it needs us to maintain; for instance, we should often contact each other, respect our friends, and be true to them.

To maintain relationship, it’s important we contact each other every once in a while. If there is no contact, we will forget each other. Take Emma and me for example. Emma and I were junior high school classmates. We used to be best friends. Even though we studied in different senior high schools, we still hung out together. But since we entered university, we have lost contact. Time will dilute many things, including friendship. On the other hand, frequent contact may cause negative effects. Personally, I hate people urging me to reply to the massage. I think chatting is to make both feel comfortable, not annoyed, so the frequency of interaction should not be too high, but we should not lose contact.

The second essential point for keeping friendship is we should respect our friends. We should not be perfunctory with each other; otherwise, our friends will not want to talk with us. For example, I have a friend named Alex. Every time I shared something interesting with him, he always only said “Hahaha!” and then started to talk about himself. Gradually I did not want to share things with him because he did not care about what I said. Obviously, it is important to respect our friends and give feedback properly.

The most important element for maintaining friendship is being true to our friends. We cannot say unpleasant or untrue things behind our friends. And we cannot lie to each other. For example, my friend Lily once told me that she hated Tina because she thought Tina is stingy. But the next day, I saw them walking together happily. So I thought Lily is hypocritical, and I gradually moved away from her. I want to avoid her speaking something bad behind my back one day. I think we should not use friends because they are not our tools. Also I hate people who think of me only when I am useful. Once a friend who had not contacted me for a long time asked me one day if I could teach her English because my major is English. I felt that she just wanted to use me as a translator. This kind of friend is not a true friend.

Although many people think it is okay to lose a friend, as they still have many friends, I think every friendship must be taken seriously, and we have to keep in touch with our friends, and be respectful and truthful to them. It takes time and effort to maintain a friendship. But the premise is that this friendship will not make us feel confused. A good friendship makes both feel happy and respected. All in all, I believe if I do the above three points, I will maintain good relationship with every worthy friend.