Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    
    A friend will not shrink from utter frankness/honesty.
    
    A friend will not indulge feelings of inferiority.
    
    A friend would rather be in a friend's face rather than see
      that friend fail in some committment.
    
    
      

    
    	A friend encourages your success in life and that this
    success is based on *your own* terms and conditions.
    
    	Joe Jas_looking_at_another_screen
    

    A friend is someone who likes you for who you are
    And the friendship you provide
    Although time may pass and distance may prevent you from seeing
    each other as often as you'd like,
    When you finally _do_ see each other, the time melts away
    And you pick up where you left off
    Giving each other a helping hand
    A shoulder
    Or a nudge back to reality
    Feeling free to be yourself with your friend
    Where honesty comes from caring
    And knowing that your friend won't laugh in your face
    Or turn his/her back
    When it seems that everyone else is
    
    
    Judi
    

    	Most strikingly, friends are those people with which you are
    able to define yourself.  Literally the person I am is governed
    by the friends I keep.
    
    	Having just lost my best friend to an accident last week, I'm
    priviliged to have had such a person in my life.  Even though he's
    gone, I take comfort knowing that loving him and sharing myself with
    him have given me more than enough joy to balance the momentary
    pain of losing him.  Without him, I'm now, forever, a different person. 
    
	No regrets, never anything unsaid, never anything unresolved,
    never questioned, never judged, always supported and always supportive,
    always understood, always understanding, always loved and always
    loving.

    A friend is someone who has the patience to listen,  
    the compassion to try and understand, the ability
    to relate to a situation without trying to offer
    all the answers and (most importantly) allow you the room to 
    make your own decisions/mistakes/etc. and still be 
    there for you without an "I told you so....."
     
    Ralph,  (I married my best friend!)

    Friends remain, always, like mountains, like the wind in winter
    Lingering, noteless, whispering rumors of sunshine and summer
    And dreams of dawn...
    
    Friends remain, always, like the flickers of truth
    Found in books that wait, unsplayed, on shelves
    With others similarly shut, comforting, constant, and content...
    
    Friends remain, always, like a flower, come to rest
    Hastily pressed in heavily bound pages to be recalled
    As if the ghost of occasion had been saved
    With the pale petals and now-fragile leaves of long ago...
    
    Friends remain, always, like the taste of rain
    The shimmer of far rainbows dancing
    The turning back of the white-velvet coverlet of winter
    Revealing the truth - that spring had never left
    Just slept alone, aloof in vivid dreams
    Of renaissance and return and renewal...
    
    Friends remain, always...
    

    					-Jody Bobbitt
    

    Someone with whom you share mutual respect.
    
    And, ALWAYS there when you need a friend!

    
    		a friend is someone who shares your happiness
    		and your sorrows...and keeps hanging in there
    		even when you're changing fast and it's hard
    		to keep up even with yourself...
    
    		a friend will send you hugs and be there in
    		spirit even when you're far away...

    		a friend will try to understand even when
    		you can't explain it to yourself...
    
    		a friend will love you for yourself and
    		not try to change you, but help you too
    		be better if you want to be...

    
    			thanks again, my friend...

    some one who understands you, even when your weird.  Takes time
    to hear what you aren't saying, because your afraid, (or don't know
    what you mean). Strong when you are out of control, can help reel
    you back into control. Reality whether or not you want it. May not
    agree, but goes along. enjoys seeing you happy. enjoys making you
    happy. knows alot about you, but not everything. will go out of
    their way if you need them to, and if you are REAL lucky, will know
    without being told, when that is. Not try to control your every
    move, thought, etc.
    
    I also married one of my friends, the other is the wrong sex to
    marry, so she's just my best friend.

    I forgot this one IMPORTANT ingrediant -
    
    someone you can look at in a meeting, and know what they are thinking,
    (unfortunately, somehow you have to control the laughter that wants
    to burst forth!)
    
    SOMEONE WHO YOU CAN LAUGH WITH! about anything!

    re: .9 > Takes time to hear what you aren't saying, because your
           > afraid, (or don't know what you mean).

    Thought you would appreciate this.  I do not know who wrote it,
    but I have carried it for years...
    
        
    
    			Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear.
For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks,
Masks that I'm afraid to take off,
And none of them are me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
But don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
That all is sunny and unruffled with me,
Within as well as without,
That confidence is my name and coolness my game,
That the water's calm and I'm in command,
And that I need no one.
But don't believe me.
Please.

My surface may seem smooth, but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complaisance.
Beneath swells the real me in confusion, in fear in aloneness.
But I hide this.
I don't want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my weakness and fear being exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind.
A nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend.
To shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation.  My only salvation.
And I know it.

That is if it's followed by acceptance, if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me, from myself,
From my own self-built prison walls,
From the barriers that I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me of what I can't assure myself,
That I am really worth something.

But I don't tell you this.  I don't dare.  I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance and love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh,
And you laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing, that I'm just no good.
And that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game.
With a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within.
And so begins the parade of masks.
And my life becomes a front.

I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing
And nothing of what's everything, of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine do not be fooled by what
I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am NOT saying,
What I'd like to be able to say.  What, for survival, I need to say,
But what I can't say.

I dislike hiding.  Honestly

I dislike the superficial game I'm playing,
The superficial, phony game.
I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous, and me,
But you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
Even when that's the last thing I seem to want, or need.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes the bland stare
Of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.

Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
Each time you try to understand because you really care,
My heart begins to grow wings,

Very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings.

With your sensitivity and sympathy, and your power of understanding,
You can breathe life into me.  I want you to know that.

I want to you know how important you are to me,
How you can be a creator of the person that is me,
If you choose to.  Please choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
You alone can remove my mask, 
You alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic
And uncertainty, from my lonely prison.

So do not pass me by.  Please do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.

A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
the nearer you approach to me, the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man,
I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for, but I am told that
Love is stronger than strong walls, and in this lies my hope.
My only hope.

Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle
Hands -- for a child is very sensitive.  Who am I, you may wonder?

I am someone you know very well...

And I love you very much.

    Re:  .3
    
    Out of all these terrific replies yours brought to mind my best
    friend from high school (15 yrs.).  I've lived in California since
    two weeks after graduation but we're still close.  I thank you for
    putting into words the thoughts that rattle around in my head about
    this person.
    
    
    Just one other note:
    
    A friend is someone who knows all about you and likes you anyway.
                           
    
    Jan

    re: .12
    
         That reminds me of something I said about a very close friend
    who is now on the other side of the planet:
    
        "A friend is someone who has seen you every way
                   and likes you anyway."
    
         Strange how similar emotions inspire similar words.
    
                                Greg
    

    There have been some  great replies to this and with a very special
    person in mind I will add my two cents.
    A friend is someone who allows you your mistakes and still encourges
    you to follow your dreams. They give you your space, but push you
    when you need it. They suport your ventures even if they don't
    agree and there to help pick up the peices when you fail. They tell
    you honestly about your new hair style, but not to hurt your feelings
    They care, and no amount of space or time will ever change that.

         Friends...
         
         To be a friend, one must possess the ability to offer
         love without expectation of love in return....and
         offer it again when it is at first refused.   
         
         Do not misunderstand....love does not infer a lack
         of criticism or argument or prodding....it merely
         pre-supposes the *intent* of any action as being
         that of love....not self-seeking.
         
         In our society...it is unusal to *marry* a friend,
         marriage carries with it so many legal and duty-ridden
         obligations that friendship is very often over-shadowed
         in lieu of passion or practicality. Marriage to a
         non-friend is a series of IOU's that too often roll
         over into bankruptcy.
         
         I have *many* acquaintances in my life....I have
         friends that I can count on my two hands. My son
         is one of my friends. As is my husband. Some of these
         few I have found....others have found me. One of
         the most exciting things in life is to meet a new
         person who for some reason ignites a spark that says
         "this person is a friend...." One of the most humbling
         experiences in life is to have someone find *you* when
         you did not see them as "friend".  They are so special
         and so rare.                                     
         
         Melinda.

    re .16
    
    I think you need some new friends. If your commentary was for real,
    your jaded attitude toward friendship is to be pitted. I think
    we've all had acquantences along the way that we thought of as friends
    and they have disapointed us, even hurt us by betraying that friendship.

    One can not forgo forming friendships because of the risks involved.
    Also, you have to be a good friend to make a good friend. I think
    what you were implying was that you've tried to be a good friend
    all to no avail. If that is the case, I hope you do not give up
    on being a good friend. Some people will be worth the effort.
    
    Gail

    Sure, I enter a reply to a note that's been deleted...great, well
    you know who you are...

         Here's mine:
               
             A friend is someone who comes in, when the whole world has
    gone out.

	I made a friend the other day, 
		we talked so long had much to say,
	It seemed to push those clouds away,
		and let the sun send golden rays,
    	God if you can just grant I pray
    		in our hearts the friend will stay.