by Hasan Goreja

Created on: July 11, 2008

Most of us get to hear a lot about friends through different quotable quotes from a magazine or a book or even via a mere text message (read: SMS) but we need to distinguish between friends and acquaintances. Friends are people who are bonded with you in one way or the other but acquaintances are the ones, whom you don't get to see on a regular basis or the level of interaction between you or them is very less.

I have always been in the favour of a smaller group of friends and I have my reasons for that. When the group of friends is small, you don't need to remember different occasions associated with every human. Birthdays, anniversaries, parties.and the list is non-ending.
But apart from the above mentioned (and somewhat silly) reason, heightened expectations also come into the main stream. When a large group of people are bound together, it's natural for the people involved to have high expectancy levels than a person coming in contact with a restricted number of people. And the bond of friendship resultantly gets weaker when expectations are not met.
Imagine, you are hanging out with the group of your friends and during the dinner, you try to break the news of your engagement. Every time you try to speak, a more outspoken friend of yours intervene and the gaze of whole group shifts to him turning your excitement sour. If you had a small group of friends, you wouldn't have encountered the dilemma at the first place.
As well said that "A man is known by the company he keeps", so a prodigious group will naturally tend to be more violent, hostile and rustic when trying to derive some new means of having fun. Even if you were not involved in the unruly activities of your group of friends, you'll still be counted with the crows. And the stamp will remain on your forehead for the rest of your days on this earth.
Envy also comes into play when a person is exposed to a larger number of people. The acts under this sinister notion are also more damaging and the detection of the black sheep gets an uphill task in a huge group. In a small group, not only the envious soul is easy to detect but the correction of that guy is also not difficult.
While being in an awful position, the friends usually come out as a shore to harbour. In case of a large number of friends, the suggestions and solutions are sure to be drenched in diversity so much so it may become a cause of enmity in the very group. This eventually leads to a delayed decision for the person having the problem at hand.
In the end, I would like to put forward my opinion that in today's fast paced world; no one really has time for making and keeping true friendships. And after much effort and time, I have deduced that the true friend of a person is a book. It doesn't harm your emotions, will be there every time you need it (if you haven't misplaced one) and always give you a company which is both entertaining and enriching.

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