Friends

Casey, a good friend, once gave me some very useful advice - The Friend Theory

She told me that, in life, we'll meet 3 kinds of friends.

1. A friend for a reason
2. A friend for a season
3. A friend for life

And she told me that it was important to distinguish and be certain about each friend we had.

A friend for a reason is someone who just happened to be at the right place and at the right time, going through a particular complicated situation with you. For that period of time, you both had that situation in common and had to rely on each other to overcome it. And that's about all there is to the friendship.

A friend for a season would pretty much be like colleagues and classmates. For a longer period of time, the both of you hang out together, share gossips, giggle and chat for the 5 days a week you spend with each other. But when one leaves the workplace or when you graduate, you will eventually drift apart because you both won't have very much in common anymore.

A friend for life is someone who you really care for and will make sacrifices for. No matter how far apart you both are, you will still make the effort to keep in touch. A friend for life should also surpass seasons and reasons - that's why she/he is your friend for life.

Now here are some of my thoughts:

Friendship is literally a give and take. The favours, the sacrifices, the effort are some of the 'goods' we exchange with our friends - it has to be mutual. And that makes it so much more important that we be sure about the kind of friends we have because we don't want to end up being 'empty', meaning giving up too much to the friends who may not return the 'goods'.