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Emi Bakken

College Comp. 2

Mr. Reynolds

February 18, 2011

What Makes a Good Friend

I have many people who I consider friends in my life. When I stop to think

about it, I wonder how many of them I consider to be a good, quality friend. So what

exactly makes a good friend, it is someone who will always be there for you, a

person who honestly cares about and just someone who you can be your true self

with. Being a good friend to someone takes a lot of skill, this, according to Steven

Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For You, is called telescoping.

Telescoping is when one task, that appears to be simple, actually requires a lot of

skills you have to master to end up with the one overall result. Friendship, I think, is

one of the top things we take for granted. We need to embrace each moment. It may

not be exactly what you thought it should be. The people that you would have hand

picked may not always be there. Make the most of it, anyway. You never know, you

just might miss what you missed one day.

In my opinion, the number one quality needed for a good friendship is

honesty. You need to have the ability to be brutally honest but get your point across

in a nice way. If your friend were to ask you how she looked in her jeans you might

think, ew those make you look like you have long, nasty, grandma butt. Even though

that may be true you have to apply just the right amount of honesty mixed with
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sincerity to tell her that she should buy a different pair. All the rest of the skills and

qualities that a good friendship requires fall back to honesty. Your friends have to

be able to trust that you are being honest with them and that they can trust you to

always be honest with them.

Second, you have to have somewhat of similar interests. I know the old

saying, opposites attract, but you have to have a few things in common or else its

just toast from the beginning. Finding something to relate with one another on is so

important. If you can’t relate on anything, then you won’t have conversations that

last more than two minuets. No friendship will last on meaningless, two-minute

conversations. You also have to be giving and willing to do things for each other.

Doing things and getting little surprises just lets each other know that you still

appreciate them. Also, you have to make time for your friends. Knowing that

someone is always there for you no matter what the time is so comforting. I know I

can, and have, called my friends at two in the morning and talked for hours if

something is really wrong. Just the fact that they are always there for me and on my

side is what really sets apart the good friends from the average, everyday

acquaintance.

Lastly, you have to be fun. No one likes being around a boring, grumpy, party

pooper. You need to get out and do things and be willing to do things. Being

exciting and adventurous is so important in a good friendship. Yeah, everyone has

those days, or in some cases weeks, when you just don’t feel like doing anything but

lay on the couch. Everyone has those days, and we need those days too. But, if
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you’re fun and outgoing, people are going to want to be around you. This gives you

the opportunity to meet more people and have the chance of making new friends.

Friends are so important in your life, to have someone away from family that

you can just hang out with, talk to and always guaranteed a good time with is what

everyone depends on. Without my girls I don’t know how I would be able to handle

all the little things that go wrong. I’ve learned that good friends are hard to find, and

now and that I have found them I can’t and won’t let them go.