Friendship

I recently had someone request to be linked on Friendster, and I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread here on friendship. The reason why I thought I’d write is because there are a number of students whom I teach who seem to have an issue with ‘backstabbers’ and the like. Well, you’re not the first, and I want to explore the reasons why people may be ‘backstabbers’.

I’m not the first person to experience betrayal or ‘backstabbing’, but over the years I’ve discovered that there’s no real thing called betrayal or backstabbing. Let’s put it this way. I’ve thought I had been badly betrayed in the past and yet I’m almost sure that the other person will think the same way of me. So, who’s right and who’s wrong doesn’t matter anymore. What really matters is that you know that betrayal is just a way of understanding yourself and the way you communicate.

If you constantly test your friends to see if they ‘betray’ you, why did you test in the first place? If you hold on too tightly to the things of the past, you will start looking for evidence that supports it. It’s like the blade of a knife. Grabbing hold of it will make you bleed, but grabbing it tighter doesn’t make the bleeding stop – it makes things worse.

So those of you out there who are focusing on the problems with friends, then heed this – just because you felt betrayed doesn’t make the other person a betrayer. And just because you may have been betrayed doesn’t make you any better a person by going around telling people that you were betrayed. What makes you a better person is to look at what friendship does and what you can do to make it more so.

Why do you want friends? You need them because of many reasons. So, if you focus on those reasons, and those reasons alone, the idea of friendship doesn’t lose its meaning. Like I prefer to say, you might encounter betrayal and distrust. But don’t let that stop you from making friends – make friends in spite of it… make friends anyway. And be a far better friend because of your past experiences.