Who is your friend?

This morning, my sister was trying to tell me she ran into the taxi guy that drove me once and she was like, ‘Ha, I saw your friend yesterday and I asked him why he hasn’t been coming around.’ My mind did a quick search around the few people I call my friends and the number of those that knows where I stay. I couldn’t figure out one and I was forced to ask, ‘Which friend?’ Imagine my shock when she said, ‘Your cab guy na.’ I had to tell her there and there that he is not my friend.

 

Big sis hasn’t been the only one that makes this mistake. Someone will just bring up an, ‘ I saw your friend yesterday at the bank’ and I would begin to wonder, ‘Which friend?’ And when I hear who, I always try to create the distinction.

 

 

Who is a friend?

My own definition: A friend is someone who knows me (at least knows the first 5 basic things about me), who can talk about me, who can fight for me, who I can call in desperate time, who I think about, who calls me sometimes just to be sure I had a decent meal, who I can ask for money without feeling like a beggar, someone I can call an idiot and we’d laugh over it, someone who remembers to call me at least twice a month (we both have busy schedules and we understand), someone I can spend hours with talking about life plans, someone who I at least have a picture of saved somewhere in my gallery, someone who can call me at 4am and I won’t get mad, someone who corrects me when I make a mistake, some who chastise me when I mess up, someone I can just pinged after months of not speaking and say, hey yo (just for saying hi sake)…

 

I cannot just meet you today and we spoke a little about knowing each other and tomorrow you call me and say, ‘Hello my friend.’ Hell no, my dear, you are not my friend. You are just an acquaintance.

 

We may work in the same office and see each other 8 hours 5 days a week but if we share no personal interaction and you don’t fit into any of the above, my darling, you are just my colleague.

 

Just because we were classmates for 6 years doesn’t make you my friend if there’s no special bond between us, it only defines you as my old school mate.

 

 

You may have been on my BBM contact for years and we don’t do more than, oh nice DP, oh you are cute, aw, you traveled- all these doesn’t mean you are my friend, you are just a social media contact.

 

I could address you with endearing words such as darling, dear, sweets and the likes…it is just part of who I am, I’m used to it and that’s want mean you are my friend.

 

Calling someone a friend is sacred to me. It is deep. It goes way beyond just knowing someone on the surface. It doesn’t have to take days, weeks or years but how deeply we connect. We could just meet today and become friends…it happens. But I will not call every random person I talk to my friend, I am sorry I will not. If I don’t address you as a friend, you are not my friend.

 

Most people have paid heavily for making every Tom, Dick and Harry their friend and I have also been a victim of this. So this is not pride, this is choosing who you allow in your life and who you do not choose.

 

Do I have an ‘aye’ on this??? Thanks for reading. Don’t forget to share your view on this in the comment section below. Have a beautiful week??

 

Pic Source: Google