True Friendship

“Friends… how many of us have them.”
“Friends… ones we can depend on.”

The song “Friends” by Whodini was one of my favorite songs back in the early ‘80’s. (Gee, don’t you wish there were more rap songs like that one?)

I use to love that song when I was in high school. In high school, I had too many friends to count. I was always yacking on the phone at night and on the weekends with all of those friends. I walked the entire neighborhood on hot summer days with those friends. I hit the skating rinks, the mall, and the amusement park with those friends.

Everything way back then, in the ‘80’s, was about me and my friends.

When I was in high school, my favorite teacher would set aside a few minutes each week to talk to us about the things of life. We were his “smart” class, his physics class of ten students. I guess he thought we had a little potential, and the class was small so he could get away with presenting his opinions to us. I think we were just glad to get a moment to sit back and chill until the lunch bell rang.

Well anyway, one day he said something that really perplexed us all… As a matter of fact we laughed quite hard at him.

He said, “At any point during your lifetime, if you have 5 true friends, consider yourself very rich.”

We HOWLED when he said that. He just stood there stoned face and looked at us.

“Are you kidding?” one student asked. “I got a whole lot of friends!”

We all chimed in in agreement.

You see, back then we ALL had a TON of friends.

He said, “No, I mean true friends.” He went on to explain himself, but we blew him off. We thought he had gone stone cold mad that day…

But some 20 years later I understand what he meant. I think I began to even understand him 10 years later when I was only in my mid-twenties.

I don’t have many friends. Oh yeah, I have a ton of associates, or people I am loosely acquainted with, but I don’t consider them real friends. Heck, some folks, I wouldn’t trust them with the lint on my shirt.

And then, right now, I have a few friends who were long time friends, but I make a conscience effort to stay away from these days… Or we have the hardest time hooking up…


Over the years, I have observed the following about my true friends…

My true friends can take one look at me, or just hear something in my voice, and can immediately tell if something’s bothering me.

My true friends will listen, allow me to cry, and allow me to talk about whatever is bothering me, no matter how silly it may sound. They are never, ever judgemental. Afterwards, they always speak encouraging words, words of life to me, allowing me to get back on my feet, giving me courage to go and take care of the situation.

My true friends share in all my personal victories and accomplishments. They are never jealous, treating my accomplishments as if they were their own.

My true friends know me better than I know myself.

Now that’s true friendship.

I hope they can say the same about me. I hope I give to them just as much as they have given to me.

And you know what? I finally understand, after all these years, what my physics teacher meant about true friendship.

I wish I could find him and thank him for taking a few moments to impart some knowledge to the class that day…

Really, though...