Friends or Foes; We never know!

Notice how I titled my entry “Friends Or Foes? We never know”, I chose the word OR; instead of "VS." or "And" because...Well, do we really know which ones are friends and which ones are foes? Well yeah eventually we do, but when it’s too late, and obvious. Three years ago, while sitting in Physiology class in College my professor said, and I quote:

"Don't count your friends on a sunny day; wait until it rain,s to see how many are still there." Dr. Colombo

Bingo! He nailed it with that metaphor; I immediately agreed, while some lost souls didn't capture the depth of his off topic comment. I don't even remember what he taught that day in class, but I do remember the 5 seconds it took for him to blab out that metaphor on friendships. Basically, it means; don't count the number of friends you have on a good day, wait for the chaos, when life is so chaotic , that it messes up your almost perfect little world, puts you in survival mode, and then count them, to see how many are left to help you rise. Rise back to that once, good, comfy and enjoyable place that you once shared with your "so called" friend. Many friends will make excuses to not help you with your crisis (they often thinks to themselves "well geez that sounds like a personal problem my friend). Whether its big or small, whether you need their help OR not to overcome it, they just won’t make the effort to get involved. Most of the times you might not even need them to physically help you, encourage you, listen, most of the times all you are looking for is for them to be sympathetic for the moment; to have an understanding of what it means when you say "I been going through a tough time", but the fact the sun isn't shinning so bright on your side anymore, they stray away. These are the foes... The selfish ones, the self-absorbed, self-interested, greedy foes that pretend to be our friend while it is benefiting them in some type of way, as if you were a Non-Profit organization set up to completely glorify their lives, with no such care, respect, comprehension in return when you need it. Well Hello? Why don't we see the signs until it’s too late? (haha it would save us a huge dissapointment)... Most of the foes will make up the best of the worst excuses to not join your pity party, they fear you will suck them in and all the sudden their lives will get rained on too. Which actually works quite the opposite: Friends usually helps each other get out. But helping someone usually takes too much of our time, too much of our energy when well… it is very annoying hearing their sorry story.. Right?....NO, YOU FOE!.. Sparing a few minutes of your time to simply lend a hand or a ear to listen to someone shouldn't compromise your time, and it shouldn't take up all our energy, and it definetely shouldn't annoying either, dammit!

Okay okay, I take in consideration that everyone has problems in life, everyone suffers their own struggle, and have no room to dedicate their energy to suffering through another ones struggle. But the part that gets me, is that the shittest of friends are so shitty and selfish, that they do stick around on the cloudy days, even through the stormiest nights, (I guess it's good to know someone out there has problems too, Idk).  Well but then to contradict my theory on friends or foes here. In my 24 years of experience I have come to the realization that my problem with friends isn’t so much on the cloudy days, I find them to be the fakest on the sunniest of days. The more the sun shines on me, the less friendly my friends get. I remember when making friends (and keeping them) was so easy, and as I grow older and wiser it gets extremely difficult, I now search for a different criteria in the candidates for a friendship; other than just common interests. I’m not sure if I achieved this 7th sense (the 6th one being intuition, of course) through experiences or inheritance,,, the ability to reading people motives, perhaps I was just born allergic to bullsh!t. But right away I can tell if the individual means well, or if they have ulterior motives just by scrutinizing their physical conduct and oral speech... It is to a certain extent infuriating for me at times to constantly judge people, to sense them out without a an tangible fair dealing cause, or proof... As much as I want to believe the friends I have keep are genuine and trustworthy, who value the importance of our friendship; allowing NO room for jealousy or enviousness in their heart. I want to believe my friends to rejoice victories with me, or to aid me when my life takes a turn for the worst and all the sudden goes from light to dark, and I need guidance. but then that infuriating 7th sense of mine sets in and makes me doubt them, because subconsciously I already knew the extend all my friends with go for me, so to keep my friends around I don't put them in a position to let me down. Not because I am skeptical of people, bcuz I am not, but because I want to believe the best in people, I want to see good in the people I keep around, and not the ugly... Making it a bitter sweet logical sense I have adquire.

"Those to weak to follow their own dreams will always find a way to discourage yours"

Sometimes, it is our sunny day that poses as a threat to some, making it an issue that can harm the whole friendship, its like they aren’t willing to celebrate victories with you, they are just there to join you in pity hell; mending failure is what they do best. But that is only when they are unhappy with their own lives, and it when you need to become conscious that you are the friend that needs to lend a hand and help them up. Because I learned that your good days will be enough to kill the friendship with someone whose day isn’t so bright, and due to pride the person won’t extend their hand to you searching for your help, but instead they will envy you, and judge your happiness as arrogance. Humans tend to keep around company of people who share the same circumstance/problem, weather (as we been calling it) so when something beautiful happens to a friend who was once suffering in the slumps with you, people just start to disappear, whether it is from hate, jealousy insecurity, that is causing so much tension in the friendship, enough to destroy it, or destroy you. Happiness needs company just as well as misery does; and the company has to be equivalent. So ugh, like is hard enough to also be this confusing… so it brings me to this awesome quote:

"Sometimes you have to be strong for yourself . You have to know that you are a good person and a good friend. What is meant to be will end up good and what is not, won't. Relationships are worth fighting for, but sometimes you can't be the only one fighting. At times, people need to fight for you. If they don't, you have to just move on and realize what you gave them was more than they were willing to give you. Hopefully, people will realize great things when they come around and don't lose something real. Always fight, until you can't anymore, and then be fought for."

Let's not be quick to judge our friends, let's not automatically call them a foe because of a situation that you were let down, always put yourself in both shoes before being the voice of reason..lol..Learn to ask yourself "How would I like to be helped if I was in this person place?" Think of yourself as a foe before you think of others as one, that way you will never jump to assumptions, giving you less chances of deliberating a wrong verdict and losing what was a friend in crisis. It makes grateful to all my experiences, with all life’s mysteries. Today, I can consider myself a well trained friend, full of humility, my character was formed from being a person who has been in both places, judged both ways. I remember the details of an unfair game. So I make sure to always make the friendship I give and offer count twice as much to all my friends, whether it is celebrating their big/small victories while I am at the bottom climbing up the pity hole, or listening and advising them at the bottom while I am at the top. There are always ways to help and be there for someone, encouragement and trust is all you need to give!