In one of the article we have learnt from “A Community of Readers”, the author said that: “for women, as for girls, intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven. Little girls create and maintain friendships by exchanging secrets…” It seems that it is a viewpoint accepted by most of my female friends. Though knowing the fact, I still cannot build my intimate friendship by sharing secrets.
In my opinion, telling secrets to a friend is just a way of making the friend believe that you trust him/her deeply. Having such a friend is of course pretty good. However intimate friends are not just persons who we share secrets with, they should be the ones who can listen to our complains about mundane things that happened in our life, who can help us release our stresses of studying, who can comfort us when we feel frustrated and who can count on when we are in need of help. So it is not only in telling secrets, but also in many trivial things we do and the ways we do them that show our trust in our friends and let our friends feel our friendliness and concern.
I used to fear that my notion as distinctive from friends around me may make me hard to find very close and intimate friends. I am friendly and sincere to my friends. I give them a hand when they are in trouble. We help each other in studies. However when we are free and sit together, we do not have much to talk about. The silence between us makes me feel that friendships are so flimsy that I will easily lose them if the silence goes on. However I later found out though my friends were in favor of sharing secrets, they still understood and accepted my way of making friends. So they try to contact with me in the way I do. In fact, many things they do really make me feel how concerned and considerate they are. I remember when I sprained my ankle; one of my friends went a long way to see me and bought dinner for me. I remember when I failed in exams; my friends would stay with me and comfort me. I never forget when I took a nap after lunch in the classroom, my friend who sat beside me would try to avoid any noise, even the minute sound that was caused when writing on papers. I never forget my friend who seldom calls me, called me from China to wish me a happy birthday.
Though no secrets being shared, those tiny but moving things still build our friendships firm. I think I will go on lasting my friendships like this, creating things that can strength the friendships and enjoying colorful memories they will bring me.
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I would like to share my opinion of friendship with you, which is quite different from yours. I simply regard your deskmate’s consideration as basic etiquette. I strongly believe that any one of my high-school classmates would not be impish enough to make noises to annoy his/her deskmate. And I don’t think it is possible for males to share trivial and mundane things with friends. Though I have to admit that it is stereotype, these behaviors would be considered girlish and immature anyway. Sometimes we casually call people around who we can get along with friends. But I don’t think I will be fortunate enough to have so many true friends. It is nothing but mammal’s instinct of herding. We suppress our hostility and rage in order to survive in a community of human beings. To me, true friendship is as rare as true love.
ReplyDeleteFriendship is a big topic. It seems that everybody lacks for true friendship. However, few people would like to open themselves, like you, like me. Maybe we are born to be lonely, because nobody can know you exactly except yourself. I am not mature enough to give you some good advice, but I can tell you some meaningful sentence:
ReplyDeleteTrue friends are not the ones whom you can always have something to talk with; they are the ones whom when you have nothing to talk with, you will not feel embarrassed.
Do not complain your friends are not considerate enough. When you want to complain, think about yourself first.