Do you know who your friends are?

 All my life, the only main thing I cared about were friends. It was always about the "Best friends" and always hanging out and making them the most important thing in my life. But at this point, I don't really consider anyone my friend because I still don't know what the definition is yet. I'm not sure I really believe that one can call someone their friend because I don't think such a thing exists. Is a friend someone who brings you a bowl of soup when you are sick, or some one who brings flowers to your grave when you're dead? I don't know, because until now, I would get attached to people and label them as my 'friend' and I would be convinced that we definitely were, but then guess what? Something always happens and we end up not being friends anymore. I used to have a "best friend", (note how I put quotation marks) and we would be so close and it felt like we really connected but when we would argue with each-other, she would say what she really felt about me (which lets say, weren't exactly nice thoughts). But then, I would always go back and say "I'm sorry" (even when I felt I done nothing wrong) and we would again be friends and the cycle would continue.  As you can tell, that got kind of exhausting and I didn't want to live that life anymore. I got tired of waking up every morning wondering Is this person my friend?

I remember the friend I used to have would say "You cant WIN an argument with me. I always win." And it wasn't until later that I realized: Why would I want to WIN an argument? This is not a game. The only thing I care about is getting my point across and letting you know how I feel! I don't even want to be arguing with you. The thing that also occured to me, was the fact that this person never told me the truth, or how she really felt or what I did that bothered her, but in arguments, it came out easily and that showed me that this person had no real feelings towards me at ALL.

The reason why the concept of friendship is so confusing towards me, is because people can always tell you the things you want to hear. They know what will put a smile across your face. And I remember reading a status on face book that a friend of mine wrote: "We're always hurt easily by the ones we love" (I hope I worded it right) But she was definitely right! And I guess this is because the ones we love the most know EVERYTHING about us; Our fears, our weakness, likes, dislikes, embarrassing secrets, and insecurities. So when we argue, they have all of our weak points in their notebook and we become easy targets to hit. I guess its human nature to dance around the truth and make someone feel great about themselves, rather than to say what they really feel, even if it might risk them getting hurt. But that doesn't make sense does it? The purpose of being friends is to try and address issues that bother them so they can fix it and end the cause of the problem (well at least that is what i thought). As you can tell, this is really why It's hard to say someone is a friend of mine.

Don't get me wrong, there are people I say hi to everyday, and we may even say "How are ya?" but I will always think to myself: Is this person really my friend? Or did they just say 'Hi' because it's the polite, obvious thing to do when seeing someone you know? I sometimes am unsure as to if people will consider themselves my friend. So i never know if i should consider them MINE. It's a new thing for me because I've always considered people my friends. People smile at you everyday, and they may laugh with you, but when a crisis comes along, that's when you discover who is truly your friend. Because anyone can say "I'll ALWAYS be there for you." But, it's otherwise useless if they can't prove it. 


So to end this, here's a question to whoever or whomever is reading this: Do you know who your friends are?