.: What's a friend? :.

I'm writing this for people who get depressed and suicidal because of their friends.

I've noticed that one of the biggest mood effecters is friendship. Most teens tends to get easily upset by their friends, and sometimes their friends don't even know it. I too have been through this growing experience.

I think friend is a luxury. If you have one, great! If you don't have one? No big deal, you'll survive.A firnd is someone who makes life fun, who can help you and not just say they will and instead do nothing. A friend is a person who cares, not only when bad things happen but even when they don't.

Human beings naturally look for people who can help them to solve their problems and maybe have a good time with. They call them their best friends so that they can further help solve their problems at regular rate without guilt and without going through all the formalities. It's sad but true.

Being called someone's best friend doesn't mean you have to be their best friend. I learnt it the hard way when i was six and told my 11 years old neighbour that she was my best friend.

"Oh," she said nonchalantly. "Well, you're not my best friend. My best friend is in school." Ouch. But then, I was six : I didn't realise that she was my only friend.

You might say that I'm taking advantage of the people I'm describing. Well, it's up to you to see it in any way you like. But in reality, what are friends? They are people who can use each other. If you have a best friend, you must have something that your friend doesn't have. That's why he needs you and calls you his best friend and vice-versa. Sorry to say this but you're literally using each other (which is okay if it's a constant give-and-take relationship).

What if you can give your friends what they need but they can do absolutely nothing for you? You can say that you don't expect anything in return but how many people really mean it? However, you do expect your friends to treat you the same way you treat them. But sometimes that doesn't work out. Sometimes. you are capable of being more caring towards your friends while they, on the other hand can't. That leaves you feeling deprived and wondering why your friends are so selfish.

However, if you do feel that you enjoy giving even though people treat you like crap, by all means carry on, it's your life. If you don't like it, you can stop. We all have to be selfish sometimes.

Not everyone will agree with me since I'm practically asking people to be cold and selfish. The world would be less warm and friendly that's for sure but I'm only suggesting that poeple do so when they meet people who put them down. Why be nice to people who are mean to you? Why care about people who don't care about you? There's a huge difference between being noble and being stupid.

Why let them treat you like this when you don't deserve it? Why put up with something that you don't like and will never like? Why change yourself to fit your friends? Why not find other friends who are able to click with you without you having to change yourself?

I feel that we should never give ourselves holly in a friendship. Give happily and openly but never wholly. You have to know how to detach yourself from your friends so that when they hurt you, you won't be hurt.

Just remember that not everyone is as lucky as some people are. If you have great wonderful firends, good, you've found some lovely peole. But for anyone who is depressed and upset because of how your friends have treated or are treating you, I say, why let your friends make you feel this way? Who are they? Friends? I think not.

Yorshee, Negri Sembilan
The Star