A LIBERTARIAN'S THOUGHTS ON FRIENDSHIP

For a start, let me amend the popular adage "A friend in need is a friend indeed" to "A friend in need is a human being". In most cases, it isn't friendship that makes a passerby take an injured man to a hospital; it's humanity, a quality which is 1 part compassion and 4 parts greed to do a good deed. Who doesn't like to boast, "Everybody just crowded around him but I took him on my bike to the hospital." Nothing can be as gratifying as a feel-good feeling. It's this human tenet that goads people, friends included, into such acts of benevolence. So, if you ever ram against a tree and a complete stranger uses his handkerchief to stem the flow from your split forehead, don't think you've found a new friend. The stranger, after ingesting all praises with gracious glee, will swear for having to buy a new kerchief.

Barring a few, most people we call friends are non-enemies. There’s a subtle difference between liking somebody’s company and not minding it. Let’s consider two people A and B; to avoid complications, let’s assume both to be of the same sex. If A and B don’t mind each others company, they are acquaintances; if both enjoy each other’s company, they are friends; and if A enjoys B’s company and B doesn’t mind A’s, it’s an apparent friendship- A laughs and B forces his lips up.

I would crudely define a friend as a person you know well, like spending time with, and behind whose back you never bitch. Never. Friendship is the assurance that your friend will not ask you too many questions if you don’t want him to, it is the assurance that your friend will return the money they borrowed without being prodded, it is the comfort with which you can break into their room, sleep on their bed and ask them to stop snoring, and it is the confidence with which you can tell them a secret without asking them to keep mum.

To maintain that fantastic equation with your buddies it’s important that you don’t breach the space that each individual craves for and deserves by being possessive or motherly. There’s a fine line between being caring and overdoing it. Good friends stay on the former side. A good friend, apart from lending advice, knows when it is not necessary to advise. They know that even if they are shouted at, it has no long-term implications, and above all, good friends are never insecure about their friends or friendships.

It is important to realize that friends are never altruistic. Friends being competitors will never share without inhibition. Thus good friends never ask you for a thing which they know you might hesitate to give. They will never look at you askance if you refuse them something.
Do not get icky with your friendship. Friends are never permanent. As we pass different milestones (this holds particularly for students), we will pick up a few good friends and leave some behind. Though the ones we leave are very dear to us, they fade against the newly founded friendships. This is true, though it sounds outrageous.