How to Be a Best Friend

Being a Friend

Best Friends Forever

It seems everyone has an opinion of what they want as a best friend or a "friend".  You'll notice that when it comes out of a guy's mouth, no woman can be a guy's friend.  Yet, it is not a requirement to be a friend to get married to a guy.  Also, a lot of women say they cannot be a friend to another woman.  I don't know where this division in sisterhood started, but it does not have to be so.  Well I am here to set the record straight, either way.  It does not have to be a sordid affair or an illicit relationship.

Shakaama's List of How to Be a Friend

Dominant Personalities with Submissive Personalities - not to sound all technical about it, but it is inevitable that a dominant person will run into a submissive person.  For everyone involved, this is the worse possible scenario, to befriend someone that is dominant to your submissiveness.  Point blank, if you are submissive to someone else, you are not equally friends, and you need to get rid of that relationship.  No matter how much candy that person gives you, you should not be "friends" with someone that dominates you.  The first rule of friendship is that it is an equal partnership.  If you are a laid back individual, then you need to go seek out other laid back individuals.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt - Friendship is all about choice.  You shouldn't be friends with someone because you work side by side.  You shouldn't be friends with someone because they go to the same church.  You shouldn't be friends with someone because they hang out at the same bar as you do.  All of these scenarios have one thing in common, forced communalism.  You are simply friends with them because of a choice you made to be in a place, over and over.  Being in one place constantly, does not constitute the germination of friendship.  You did not come to work because of that person.  You did not attend church because of that person.  You did not go to a nightclub because of that person.  Do not befriend someone, simply because they are located in a place that you frequent.  This simply gives a false sense of familiarity.  Do not get me wrong.  You can meet people in places that you frequent, but do not feel obligated to be friends with someone simply because you see them often in the same place.  The reason I say this is because, you have no choice of what type of personality you will find in these places.  You are getting all of their baggage without benefit of some sort of filtration system.

Choose Your Friends - filtering out potential baggage is the best possible start of a friendship that you can do.  And, to do this you would start by joining an activity or club that someone you would want to meet, would frequent.  To do this, you should have a list of choices of what you would want in a friend:

• how much money do they make
• how much education do they have
• do they or do they not do drugs
• are they conservative
• are they communist
• are they socialist
• are they globalist
• are they corporatist
• do they have children
• are they single
• did they go to your college
• are they a jock
• are they a nerd
• are they earthy granola hippies
• do they send christmas cards
• do they remember birthdays
• do they remember your and your kid's names
• are they thoughtful

Your list could be as specific as you want it to be.  Contrary to popular belief, making a concerted effort to go after a friendship based on your own conscience criteria is not something "evil".  You choose who you want to surround yourself with.  It is your life.

Arguing with Friends - It is the mature person that can be friends with someone that does not agree with everything he believes in.  Your friends should not be submissive to you, nor you to them.  They should not agree to everything you say and visa versa.  On that very note, if you or they get upset, it should not be the end of the friendship.  So many people have some unspoken rule in the back of their mind that if anyone ever disagrees with them, then that person is not a true friend of theirs, and therefore should not be their friend.  This, in a word, is childish, by definition.  You can get angry with your friend.  Your friend can get angry with you.  They can disagree with you and you with them.  The adult does not take his ball and go home.  The adult listens to what he has to say, then voices his own opinion, then agrees to disagree if you cannot reach a consensus.

Taking it to Heart - If you or your friend takes everything said, to heart, and thereby gets offended, then you are friends with the wrong person.  Such a person is being submissive to a dominant personality.  If you are taking everything that someone says, to heart, then you are looking for their approval and not their friendship.  The very same thing can be said about any type of relationship you have with a person: parent / child; lovers; siblings.  You need to divest yourself of such a relationship.  If you are taking everything that your parent, lover or sibling says, to heart, then you simply need to stop talking to that person, for good.  It is not healthy.

I hate to sound so cut and dry, but people are suffering from terrible personalities and for absolutely no reason other than their parent did not sit them down and teach them how to interact with other people.  Maybe their parent fail at such things.  Most parents do, especially poor ones.  There is no need for you to torture yourself by being submissive to anyone else's personality, including your own family.

You are the most important person on the planet.  You have to watch out for your own sanity and health.  So many people are unhealthy from outside stress and they do not realize that it is due to the relationships they have.  Their stomachs are all tied up in knots, over something someone close to them said, but go to the doctor and forget about it.  When the doctor tells them to reduce stress, they try to adjust their diet, or take long baths, yet call that very person on the phone that stresses them out and keeps them in their life.

No other person on the planet is so precious that you cannot do without them, if they are unhealthy to you.

Friends Before Lovers - Everyone talks about love [and by love I mean lust], but noone talks about friendship.  I say, before you are lovers, you should be friends.  You should marry your best friend.  A friend can argue with you, laugh with you, call you, pick up your spirits, cry on your shoulder and just sit with you while you read a book or the paper.  This is what a wife should do.  This is what a husband should do.  People go about getting married backwards, i.e. be lovers first then try and grow into a friendship.

You should seek out a friend, before seeking out a lover.  You should have ten girl friends, instead of ten girl-friends.  Then, you can choose which girl friend you would like to marry, and visa versa.  If your girl-friend is financially ruinous to you, and you go about it the normal way, and not my way, you are ruined for life.  If you go the way I suggest, you would already know that the girl is bad news with money, and you'd just keep her as a friend and nothing more.  However, the current way of doing things, you date someone and proceed to marry them, before you discover what a terrible friend they are for you, after the fact.

You want to hedge your bets against getting a divorce?  Befriend a lady before dating her.  This might seem counterintuitive to getting a mate.  The adult does not hand out, "Do you like me? X yes X no" cards.  First, make your friendship list rules, go find friends that fit into those rules and make sure some of them are of the opposite gender.  Then, when you have determined that one of the women are up to your standards, start dating her.  If she can argue with you, laugh with you, call you, pick up your spirits, cry on your shoulder and just sit with you while you read a book or the paper, then getting married to her should, almost be, a sure bet that you would never get a divorce.

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