Understanding friendships
by Amal Hewavissenti
The magic of friendship is
something that defies all explanation. There is no clearly defined time
or place to re-establish existing friendship or to support a freshly
earned friendly tie. But it is cardinally important that whenever or
wherever a friendship is made, true friends are the unconditional
sharers of both happiness and grief alike. Understanding the other
person plays a key role in nurturing and maintaining life-giving
friendship.
 True friends complement each other and readily show spirit and
strength in speaking or acting in support of each other. It is pretty
clear that most people who are employed in offices build up amicable
relationships within the office atmosphere because they spend most of
their time together.
In short, these relationships are limited to the staff or the team in
the office. Whatever be the variety of relations, friends are perhaps
the first to bring relief to the anxiety and boredom plaguing one’s
private or office life. Behaving as like minded people is more to our
liking than anything else as far as social life is concerned because
such friends carry us to effortless success.
However, a good understanding of other’s needs, weaknesses and
strengths, behaviourial pattern, habits or hopes are essential for
long-lasting friendship. One must be fully awake to any misunderstanding
or anything negative that might mar the healthy relationships.
This means a sound awareness of the inner self of the person you are
establishing your friendship with, will cancel out possible heart
rending misunderstandings. If you happen to fall into a serous
disagreement with a friend, it is highly sensible to talk it over with
him with no third party intervention. No matter how long the process of
reconciliation would take, never discuss your friend’s mistakes or
defects of personality with a third person. Therefore, self sacrifice is
pivotal in achieving an extraordinary life time friendship.
On the other hand, the friends, you have made before your marriage
have to be dissociated sometimes simply because of your spouse’s
personal attitude to them. For example he/she might say “I don’t like
the way he looks,” “I don’t like the way he/she looks at you,” “Why in
the world is he/she coming so close to your face?” “I really hate how
he/she dresses,” “Your friend’s boasting is what is most disgusting’ and
so on. This inevitably leads to your conclusion to distance yourself
from those ‘friends’ and to look for better friends to fill the vacancy.
If your wife or husband intensely detest certain friends of yours (of
your sex), never hurt her/his pride of being your partner but distance
them tactfully and unnoticeably.
Friendly relations should, under no circumstances, interfere with the
happiness and the integrity of married life though. Under such
situations, you could maintain the friendship through greeting cards,
and telephone dialogues. This too must be known to your partner.
Trapped in a busy schedule of life, you might not get a chance to
take part in a birthday or wedding function, a funeral or an anniversary
party of a friend of yours. In such a case, you may avoid meeting him
because you are guilty conscious for having ‘neglected’ the invitation.
It is better to call on the friend personally and explain your own
excuses for being unable to attend the function though invited. If it a
funeral, be sensible enough to express your heart felt condolence at
least through the phone.
For building better friendships, letters are far more dynamic and
more expressive than the telephone. “To make a long story short, writing
a letter to your friend is far too closer to an actual meeting. This is
what it is all about.
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