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SpongeBobRocksMao
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02 Nov 2009, 4:40 pm

To me, a friend is someone who you can get on with and someone who you feel comfortable to talk to. And also someone who isn't mean to you or anything, and would help if others are mean to you.


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CyclopsSummers
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02 Nov 2009, 4:50 pm

pat2rome wrote:
It's one of those things that is almost impossible to get a satisfactory definition for, but as Potter Stewart said, "I know it when I see it."


I would agree with this. I think it's something that must be felt rather than be put down in words. I do think that every single person has a different personal definition of 'friend' in their mind. But reciprocality must always be there. If you have someone you hang out with and feel comfortable around and whom you can confide in, yet you can't be the same for them in return, it's one-sided and not truly a friendship.

My own personal definition of a 'friend' would be - in the vaguest of terms - someone who resonates with me. Can't put it any differently right now. Note that I currently do not have friends, but I used to, once.


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Boomkin
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02 Nov 2009, 4:55 pm

I've always had this weird way of categorizing my friends by the order in which I met them. So the one I've known the longest would be my "Best" friend and so on. When one of my other friends would call me their best friend I always felt uncomfortable about it because I hadn't known them as long and in my own mind you could only have one best friend.

I still feel this way, but now I'll say that a person is one of my best friends if I haven't known them the longest.

I think a friend is someone you enjoy doing things with that you've known for a long time. Someone who lets you be who you are.


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OverlyIntense
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02 Nov 2009, 5:12 pm

I feel like a friend is somebody you get more out of than you put in.



JetLag
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02 Nov 2009, 7:30 pm

I think a good friend is someone who is quite familiar with your idiosyncrasies and still visits.


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Maggiedoll
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02 Nov 2009, 9:30 pm

Somebody who nothing that either of you do could make the other think differently of you. Like, a combination of understanding and having known them long enough to have seen them change, and just stability of how you see each other. (Like, they won't think differently because they already knew I'm nuts, and they won't think differently because they know me and just don't think differently. If that makes sense.)
So I have one that I'm sure about. And I very rarely even talk to her. :?



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03 Nov 2009, 12:24 am

I think it's someone who you can talk to about quite literally anything and they won't get offended or weirded out. Somebody that offers to hang out or go places. Somebody that can talk to me without getting board.


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glider18
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12 Dec 2009, 11:28 pm

I will just add something else to how I perceive a friend---in my case a best friend. A best friend is someone who I continue to feel extremely comfortable with even after having not seen for years. Today, my best friend in school was visiting from Florida, and I got to see him for around 45 minutes. Upon seeing him, it felt like we were still in school (now we are in our mid 40's). We were more like brothers, and people who didn't know our families well often assumed we were brothers. Interesting is how we often played together doing our own thing---for example we would work on our own model rockets on our own individual tables in his grandparents' basement. But we also did things together like play Chess. In junior high school his parents felt like he needed to socialize with more friends, and I was unable to follow him into a larger circle of friends, so I became a bit lost at this time in my life. After high school, we were each other's best man at our weddings. Now, years later, seeing him feels like we have just visited each other only yesterday rather than years ago. To me, that is a friend.


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Irisrises
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13 Dec 2009, 8:23 am

I can be very easy and pleasant to get along with on a superficial level and I find that this makes it difficult sometimes to deal with women my own age, because at some point if we get along well they expect the connection to deepen to something more like friendship and that does not happen with me, so they feel rejected.

When I was at school I had friends but (in my teens and after) they were girls who were very self-centered and didn't require mutual input, but instead enjoyed being the centre of attention all the time. Other people would get frustrated that there was no reciprocity with me, that I was always serving them, so even though I may have liked them more I wasn't able to be friends with them.

I don't know what makes a friend different from a good person in general. I guess it is just the level of intimacy. A good person is someone who does not take advantage of your vulnerability, does not want to hurt or humiliate you and pays attention to how you feel and what you want and adapts their behaviour to make you feel comfortable as much as possible. A friend therefore would presumably be someone who does these things out of affection and not just out of courtesy.



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13 Dec 2009, 4:38 pm

We must be the only people in the world who have to work out what a friend is.



SpiritBlooms
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13 Dec 2009, 6:52 pm

Skilpadde wrote:
I assume a friend is someone you wanna spend time with, someone you trust and talk to without inhibition, and who feels the same way towards you.
I find that I have levels of inhibition that vary from person to person, and not all those I'm comfortable with are people I consider friends. But I think your definition comes about as close as one can to my definition of friendship.