I have 524 friends (gosh, I’m really popular, I know). But no, not really. These are all my Facebook ”friends”. Many of these are folks I don’t even know the name of. I have stumbled across names which I can’t recall, or not even connect faces to, several times. To be quite honest all these hundreds of friends don’t really matter.
Those who are worth keeping are the friends to whom you can tell your true feelings and talk about whatever may be bugging or pleasing you. In my case this number of real friends is far less than 524. I can count the number of friends who know the real me on two hands. And when all is said and done, do you really need those other 514?
First of all let me say sorry: I’m sorry to you who have been forced to watch me cry on Skype about how scary uni life is, and have had to listen to my worries about starting a new life in London. But I also want to say thank you: thank you for not “accidentally” pressing the hang-up button and waiting a few weeks to Skype me again when I’d settled in. You know who your true friends are if they can put up with your relentless sobbing and your anxious and ridiculous self.
One of the most valuable gifts you receive by having good friends is the freedom to be yourself, and experience your friends accepting you for who you are – even if there are topics you disagree on. My friends may not think the Harry Potter books are the best books ever written (I really don’t see why they wouldn’t), but that doesn’t mean that I’ll have to start looking for new friends who share my views. I may not think Snoop Dogg is the “best-friggin’-rapper-in-the-world”, but that doesn’t mean that my friends will have to start looking for a substitute (hopefully). Books and music preferences are not the foundation of a real friendship. They can be a good starting point for bonding with a new friend, but let’s be honest – after a while you’ll run out of things to say about how devastating it was when Dumbledore died in book number six and how awesome Snoop Dogg’s pigtails are.
Friends are those who stand by you during your good times in life, but also the bad ones. Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m upset I don’t go logging on to Facebook and start looking at the top of my friends list and choose who I’ll let in on my worries of the day. Some of my Facebook “friends” are more ‘frenemies’, who I‘ve added so I can stalk their pictures every now and then and hope they stumble across some bad luck (oh, don’t pretend you don’t do it too), than actual friends.
A true friend is one who can pick you up when you’re feeling low and turn a bad situation into a good, or at least a better one. As if that wasn’t enough, Prevention says friendships can help protect you from depression and obesity – and we really don’t need that on top of our studies, do we? So please don’t get too caught up in adding-as-many-friends-as-possible-on-Facebook-so-other-people-will-think-I’m-popular, like those annoying people who you get a friend request from and all they say when asked why they added you is: “I need friends”. Cherish those close friends you have, because when times get rough and you feel like giving up; those are the ones that will stand by you and keep you going. Real friends are those who support you when you can’t support yourself.
Photos from Gibbons Digital