n.
- A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
- A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
- A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
- One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement: friends of the clean air movement.
- Friend A member of the Society of Friends; a Quaker.
tr.v. friend·ed, friend·ing, friends Archaic
To befriend.
Can any one person really define what a friend is? For some people a friend is someone who's at their side no matter what they do. For others a friend is a kind and sincere person that likes the same kind of things they do. Some people think their friends are simply the people that they are around. To me a friend is someone who will stick with me when my decisions are right, tell me when they're wrong, and help me when I'm stuck.
It's taken me a very long time to figure out what a friend is to me. When I was little a friend was simply someone who was liked and would let me follow them around. When I started Junior High a friend became someone who shared the same interests as me, was in some of my classes, and sat with me at lunch. Now I've come to realize it doesn't matter where your friends live, when/if you see them, or whether other people like them. What matters about a friend is that they like you, you don't keep unnecessarily secrets, it's not hard to have fun with them, and, no matter what bad decisions you make, as long as you're still a good person, a good friend will still be there for you.
My friends last year were not this type of person. They didn't/don't care about my feelings about things, they get angry at me for no reason, they'd betray me the second they got a better deal, and it was so hard to just be myself around them. Sadly these people were some of the nicest people I've ever met, but I can't be friends with someone who can't say they'll be my friend even if other people think I'm weird or stupid or whatever.
Now my friends are everything that I could ask for. Sure they don't like/do the things I do all of the time, and they aren't all one tight little group either. I have friends from every single clique you could think of outside of the SBO's and the Cheerleaders. They don't make fun of me for the groups I'm in, they don't make me chose between on or the other, they don't make fun of my other friends, and even though sometimes they aren't the most popular kids at school, they aren't the ones who are ruining their lives with drugs or alcohol.
Although it's taken me a long time to decide who my real friends are I think I've finally got it figured out. My real friends are those that would help me through any situation that they didn't have to get involved in to fix. They are the people I could tell anything and even though they may judge me for it the judging would not be false. They tell me when I need to change the way I'm doing things, and they don't worry about hurting me to badly when they need to.
My friends are some of the best people I know, and even though I've decided my old friends aren't my close friends I still love them.
Next year when we all split into two schools I'm lucky to say that almost all of my close friends and most of my old friends will be going to the same school as I am. I think that we'll be friends for at least a good portion of our lives. I don't know what I'd do without them now.
