by Michelle Paszkowski

Created on: February 25, 2010

What is real friendship? In the past three years I've found myself asking this very question. I have two or three people I consider my "real" friends. They are the few that have stuck by me. They're the ones I have been friends with for twenty years. True friendship can withstand all tests. When everything is going good in life, everyone seems to be a friend. When your life takes a turn, and trouble starts to rear it's ugly head, most of your so called friends will turn tail and run. The ones that stick around are your "real " friends. It sounds so simple, easy to define right? Wrong! Often times we find ourselves left alone, virtually dumped, when the good becomes the bad. I have met many people in my thirty four years who call themselves my friend, yet only a select few are still there for me when I need them. 

My life has been no bowl of cherries. I often joke that I must have been someone horrible in a previous life, and I'm paying for it now. I could win the lottery, and I'd trip and fall dropping the check down a sewer grate, that's just my luck. So I suppose being a true friend to me is not an easy job. I rely on my friends, and I count on them a whole lot more than usual. The fact that they stick by me is what makes them true friends. I've had so called friends that I thought I could count on, and I have been let down many times. I actually had someone tell me my life was too complicated for them to stay friends with me. I've been told I rely too much on my friends. One so called friend actually told me she could no longer be my friend because my life was always in turmoil. Those people were obviously not friends, so they weren't missed. Although losing someone you consider a friend is a hard thing, sometimes it's for the best. I have only two people I would award the title of "real" friend to. How do I know their friendship is real? These two people have stuck by me for years, in good times and bad, like a marriage, for better or worse. Real friendship has no expectations, yet exceeds all assumptions. Your real friends are the people you can call in the middle of the night, simply because you can't sleep. True friendship has no boundaries, there is nothing too small or large you could possibly ask of them. And on your end, there is nothing you would not do for them. My friends have driven three hundred miles, at two in the morning to give a ride to the hospital where my mother lay dying. My friends have brought me coffee at three in the morning when I was going through a divorce and couldn't sleep. If I was to flip the coin, I have done equal for them. The point I am trying to make is that "real" friendship never says you're asking too much of me, and if you are a "real" friend, you won't be the one saying it's too much. Friendship is an unspoken agreement to love each other, and be honest with each other. In a friendship you should genuinely care about each other, and if you can't offer that, you shouldn't offer your friendship. In life most friends will come and go, the ones that never leave you, are the only ones worth your friendship in return.

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