Best Friend

Many people have even more people around them, of varying relationship to them. They may be superiors, subordinates, or equals; or relatives, acquaintances; or maybe , just simply friends. However, there are also people considered, or termed, ‘best friends’.

But what is a best friend? Many mushy definitions are offered by the dozens of teen magazines that are present at the local newsstand, and I believe that you have your own concept or perception of a ‘best friend,’ but it seems the essence of the term ‘best friend’ is really something not for the discussion of intellectuals, but for feelings. Still, an attempt would be made to make it as logical and rational as possible, without removing the truths, or humanistic side, of this rather very vague concept.

A best friend is any person, maybe blood-relative or not, that a person considers to be of more or special importance than usual, and whom a person considers of closer or more personal affection than others. In this definition, the key phrase is that the “person considers,” meaning a best friend is relative to the person making a consideration, not a set criteria by society or any standard-making body. There are no criteria for a best friend. For example, Person A can be considered a best friend to Person B, even though Person C sees Person A as a traitor, back-stabber, and liar rolled into one. However, for an ideal conception of a best friend, I have some personal experiences that had helped me to identify a person as ‘best friend.’

From the previous definition, ‘affection’ is often connected with a fiancé or fiancée. In some ways, and in most instances, people consider their fiancé or fiancée their best friend. However, a best friend can be considered having a relationship bordering between a relative and a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Most people associate ‘friend’ with presence; that is, if you are not present in a time or situation when your present is crucial, it is a big bite off your credibility to be considered a ‘friend,’ much less a best friend.

There is also the association of ‘help,’ or ‘assistance.’ It is somehow connected to presence, since if a person is present in a needing situation, that person expected present is expected to help. However, there are also times that only the presence is required, and in some times, more preferred.

Openness, communication and trust are big requirements for the concept of best friend. For the ideal types, trust is not even enough, but rather faith. If you cannot entrust your secrets to a friend, that friend is not really your best friend. Trust, or faith, is telling your friend that you trust him with information and that he can and will handle the truth as well. However, on the other side of the relationship, if a person considers a friend to be a best friend, and if he does not tell a person about a secret, faith would tell that faithful person that he trusts him that it is for goodness’ (or his) sake that information is being withheld.

Jeremy Taylor, an English bishop, wrote, “By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the noblest sufferings, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds of which brave men and women are capable.” The quotation tells a very important necessity of friendship, the most universal of all truths: Love. However, ‘love’ would only be discussed in connection with the concept of friendship.

Love comprises an infinity of characters and even more behaviors. Henry Ward Beecher, an American clergy, wrote, “It is one of the severest tests of friendship to tell your friends his faults – So to love a man that you cannot bear to see a stain upon him, and to speak painful truth through loving words, that is friendship.” Openness and faith are key components of love equated with friendship.

Love and friendship has an ultimate test: sacrifice. Henry Home, a Scottish judge, writes, “The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend, as to find a friend worth dying for.” And in the Bible, in John 15:13, it is written, “Greater love has no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (NIV).

Best friends become ‘best’ most of the times during times of great challenge or pressure. Caleb Colton, an English clergy, wrote, “The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity; as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.” For this reason, military or fraternity organizations which emphasize on teamwork put training classes on the fiercest tests, not just to weed out immaterial persons, but also to strengthen the faith of each person to all and every other member, or to strengthen their emotional bond.

In a more spiritual perspective, a best friend is not made by people, but by Divine Intervention. Robert South, an English divine, wrote, “A true friend is the gift of God, and he only who made hearts can unite them.”

What characters can we compare a best friend to? Edward Hyde, 1st Eart of Clarendon, wrote, “Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physician, the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother.”

Best friends want only the best for his or her friend, or would be willing to go in place of that person if consequences are not pleasurable. Francis Bacon, an English scientist and philosopher, wrote, “Those friends are weak and worthless that will not use the privilege of friendship in admonishing their friends with freedom and confidence, as well as their errors as of their dangers.”

A best friend hopes for the betterment and ultimate well-being of a person, rather supposedly, even to the sacrifice of one’s self. He wants “to be that person who will be in the place where you are needed to be, but you can’t.” He will be a person who will be happy “whenever you are happy.” He hopes to be the person that is “strong, who can stand up to your frustrations and disappointments.” A best friend, knowing the implications, still has the heart, to tell a person, “I am feeling for you.” Ultimately, a best friend tries and hopes to perform, rather constantly, that ultimate form of love, which God has done: Sacrifice.

After all these ideas, a person can still not be in any way be behaving in ways considerably alike to the above-mentioned characteristics, and yet, considered by a person to be a best friend.

For in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

Notes:
1) All quotations without references are from sources who opted not to be identified.
2) This has been previously submitted in a Communication II paper (as a concept paper) with a 1.0 grade.