FRIENDSHIP

- by svr

1. When I think about what makes someone a good friend, I think about all the characteristics of my own friends. My personal definition of a friend, is someone who is always looking out for me, and will help me if Im in trouble. A friend has to be someone I trust and who trusts me in return. Another important characteristic in a friend is someone who I can talk to, and makes me laugh. One of the most important traits of a friend, is someone who will help you if you need it. One personal experience I had with this was when my friends, Mark, Steve, and I we all out driving around late at night. We were on our way home from going up to my camp at the lake, it was four in the morning, and we were all tired. I was driving my car and we had just gotten off the Northway when I ran over a glass bottle and my tire popped. I didnt know what to do. We had no money, and were stranded. Millions of thoughts were racing through my mind: what would I tell my mom, how could we get it fixed, and most importantly how could I stay out of trouble. My friend Mark called up his brother to come and tow the car. His actions that night made me realized that a true friend would takes risks for each other. A strong friendship also depends upon mutual trust. If you cant trust each other then it is impossible to establish a strong relationship. In the past, I have been able to tell my friends personal feelings, and know th... 2. Aristotle wrote on many subjects in his lifetime but one of the virtues that he examines more extensively is friendship. Aristotle believes that there are three different kinds of friendship: utility, pleasure, and virtuous friendships. He also argues that a real friendship should be highly valued because it is a complete virtue and he believes it to be greater than honor and justice. Aristotle suggests that humans love of utility and pleasure is the only reason why the first two types of friendships exist. Aristotle also argues that humans only set up these types of relationships for personal gain. But when he speaks of the virtuous friendships, Aristotle states that it is one of the greatest attainments one can achieve. The friendship of utility is described as a shallow one that can be easily dissolved. He views them like this because he states this type of friendship is easily lost. The only true reason these relationships exist according to Aristotle is the idea that both or one of the people has something to offer that the other needs. The bond between the two people...

3. For better or worse, a true friend is there. A true friend is there backing you up on all sorts of struggles and adversaries, no matter how though the situation may seem. A true friend knows exactly when your having a bad day just by the way you say hey and that true friend knows how to make you instantly feel better. I have to admit that for 17 years of my life I didn't have a friend whom, I could call a true friend. There was Hugo, he was in my class from kindergarten to fifth grade, but he wasn't someone who I could call a true friend. You could put any girl in front of him at that early age and he would rather go and try to smooth talk her, than help you out in any way. I'm not saying that that was a bad thing but when I was looking for a true friend, I was looking for someone who was there unconditionally. For the most part, everybody thought I was crazy. There was no way that I was going to find someone like that to call a true friend. I never gave up though. I made new friends all the time. I was a stranger to no one. By my Junior year in high school almost everybody if not everybody in the school knew me. Not because I had done something big and great. Not even because I hung out with the preps and was constantly in the in crowd. I got recognition for being a trouble making, teacher hating, butt hole. The people who I had considered my friends where leading my down a path to destruction. Every step that I took was one away from finding that one true friend that I was looking for. I remember watching The Pursuit of Happiness in the summer of '07, thinking to myself that I had been living the wrong kind of life. I was always so fixated on trying to find that one friend that I was blind to everything else that was going on around me. Every time that there had been a person who wanted to get close to me, I pushed them away. I had and still have a fear that something bad will happen to those who I truly care for. So everytime somebody got close enough to me that I truly cared for them, I pushed them away. I was passing up true friends left and right. To concerned with my fear to actually care. My best friend at the time was a pot crazed lunatic that would surely get me wrapped up in the unforgiving thorny hands of drugs if I didn't change. For three years I had been acting the way he and his friends wanted me too. I was trying so hard to fit in in that niche that I let myself down. I had lost my identity as an individual. I was no longer a unique person, I was a clone of another. Looking for that true friend had been impossible until I realized that. I wasn't being myself so the friends I had been making were friends with the other, me. The ruthless, cold hearted, mean, sadistic asshole. To find my true friend, I needed to act like me. In the start of my Senior year, I went in almost friend less. I still had some friends from the year before, but like I said those were the wrong type of friends. I could barely even consider calling them friends anymore.

That year was a year of change for me. I acted myself, reading numerous books, drawing my talents worth, writing poems for everybody, letting my humorous side show, let my shyness down and explored life to the fullest, and most of all my heart melted and a more courteous person was then me. I made many friends then, most of which were freshman. That's where I meet my true friend. In the freshman class of '07-08.She was and is an amazing person, who slowly but surely gained my full trust and faith. I have enough faith in her that I can place my life in her hands and not worry. She know's me so we'll that if one day somebody writes a biographgy about me, she would be the only one that could really get the story straight. I had many secrets I liked to keep to myself, dark secrets. I still don't like talking about them because they bring such sad depressive memories to my mind. I feel a lot of responsibility for what went on in those secret events that when I think of them it makes me want to do something terrible to forget them. I think that those secrets would have ultimately turned me into a sour person if I had not told someone about them. That's one thing that my true friend helped me with. She is always there to listen to me and my problems when I needed her. She always gaives me the best of advice and holds me together as an individual. Now I can see that if I had always been like I am now. I could have many people whom, I could call true friends. Instead of only having her as my true friend, I could have many. I remember in 11th grade there was this girl named Krista Denise Fields. Me and she were like white on a piece of paper. We were always together, always laughing, and always just there. I liked her a lot and I knew that she liked me too. However the thought of having someone that really related to me freaked me out at the time. Not because I'm gay or, because I'm afraid of a relationship. It was because she had fallen for the wrong person. She hadn't fallen in love with me, she had fallen in love with the monster. If she knew the real me would she still have liked me. I never gave myself the chance to find out. Instead I pushed her away like I always did. In the end I ended up doing something that I will truly regret for the rest of my life. I didn't do anything to her physically, I did something to her much worse. I damaged her emotionally, something I should have never done. It wasn't just like break up emotional pain. It was much worse. I feel like a coward when I think back to what I did. I can't even type it down without this feeling of regret greatly sink into me and paralyze my fingers from typing. I just sit there and feel as tears actually start to form in my eyes. A true friend is something that we all want and look for in a person. Not everybody gets the chance to meet a friend like that though. I am lucky to have met Laken Danielle Hall, and I am lucky that she didn't give up on me as quick as everybody else had done before. She is a true friend that I can trust and will always remember. (Especially because I have our Smiley Face =] tattooed on my leg with BFF written under it.) So in ending don't be a fool like I was and shut yourself off from the world. Be yourself and that person who you can call a true friend will appear. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow. It might not even be in the next ten years. However one day that person will show up in your life and

change it in ways that are unimaginable. That person will be someone that you will instantly recognize. You'll fell it click in place when you meet them If your lucky enough like me. You will get a friend who calls when down and bails you out when you break a $280 window pane at school. When your friend tells you not to worry, don't worry. They know what they are talking about. Being paranoid all day only makes you seem even more guilty. 4. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle tells us that there are three types of friendships; the useful, the pleasurable, and the perfect. In this paper, I am going to try to show why the pleasurable friendship is the worst kind to have, and of course why the perfect friendship would be the best. "Now those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get form each other." (Nic. Ethics Bk.8:3) Among my extremes of the pleasurable and the perfect, utility is definitely the middle ground. In a friendship of utility (usefulness) both parties mutually benefit off of one another, and, "the friendship is dissolved, inasmuch as it existed only for the ends in question." (Bk.8:3) The feeling of being used is okay when you know of the usage and are also getting something out of it. Example: A beautician knows she is being used to make a client look good, but she is okay because she is getting money out of it. Bad usage occurs when the usage is unknown to one of the parties. Example: When a woman flirts with a bartender every night just to get a free drink, the bartender may start to think that she likes him. Only to have him find out that he was being used, his feelings get hurt. Thus we have the "evil" pleasurable friendship coming into play. The woman flirting for a drink was her working for the desire of what was pleasurable to herself. Sometimes pleasure seekers can hurt themselves and others. ...