The essence of friends and friendship

• A friend is a person who understands me. He knows when I am feeling bad and why I am feeling bad. He tries to genuinely know the reasons behind and makes an attempt to help me.
• He seldom needs any explanations for my behavior because I know he understands me and so I don't need to make an attempt to explain the why.
• He is somebody with whom I can speak my mind without any fear - fear of backbiting, betrayal, rejection and fear of sundry other consequences. He is somebody in whose presence I exist as me.
• He may not share my interests and my likes but he neither discourages me from pursuing them nor belittles and disparages them.
  
• He makes an effort to know why I like what I like and why I dislike what I dislike. He expects me to understand him, his likes, interests and tastes.
  
• Expectations - they confuse and confound. But with good friends, it is fair and good to expect consolation and soothing words in times of despair.
  
• The true test of a good friendship is the test of time and understanding. Years may pass, but the qualities in a good friend that endear me to him never change and it takes little time to catch up on lost time.
  
• A good friend is almost always a good listener too. This is another test that can be applied to this bonding.
• A friend would be sensitive to my feelings. He would try to think through things from my perspective.
  
• A friend would not have a self-interest that conflicts with my genuine intentions.
• Friends don't keep secrets from each other unless those are the kind of secrets that they would themselves be unwilling to confront.
  
• Friendship gets complex with diminishing innocence. Consequently when there is scope for power struggle and one-upmanship, it doesn't thrive.
• There might be some instances when friendship might not be fair in terms of expectations getting skewed. In my opinion, a good friend will always realize when I am expecting a little more from him and would rise to the challenge.
  

If this reads like an ideal list, I think it is meant to be. In this age of fast evolving relationships, friendship is something that is getting defined by social networking sites. What a truly sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in!