When I was little I used to think that the worth of friendship was in the number of friends one can have. For a long time, I thought many people were lucky for being surrounded by many friends, myself included. I only grew up to realize that friendship does not account for the number of friends one can have because not every friend is a true friend. Reading Aristotle’s essay on friendship today made me realize how subtle and significant friendship, a true one, can be.

A good life without friendship is hardly attainable if ever possible. Some may contend that it is possible to live a good life without a friend. As far as I am concerned, I have yet to see it. For friendship is one of the utmost components of a good life. Without friends we cannot share our good and bad experiences; we cannot grow to be happy and share happiness. Even when we have wealth, we need friends to share with and to build our dreams.

Friendship, as I see it, is primarily a mutual bond for the sake of emotions, courage, kindness, and love. For we love our friends because they are pleasant or they find us pleasant; we love them because we trust them and they trust us—we share our ups and downs, and they do likewise. Our friends are present for us in adversity and they share our burdens and happiness. We help them stand when they fall and they comfort us when we cry. They are smart or dull, but we love them for who they are and not for the label that society sticks on them. For who can truly decide what is good, beautiful, or acceptable when we are all imperfect human beings.

Necessarily, our friends are used to us and we are used to them. But we do not count the number of favors we do them and they do not expect us to pay them back. They are honest with themselves and we are honest with them, for only if you are honest with yourself can you be honest with others. Our friends criticize our behavior and appreciate our efforts. They tell us the hardest truths about us and provide us with guidance to help us grow genuinely and move forward.

A true friend is a good friend—a good friend is good because he/she is naturally good. Good friends do not try to impress us; they have nothing to prove. They are who they are, no matter their ethnicity, their beliefs, color, sexuality, or gender. And as aforesaid, we love them for who they are instead of what they are.

Our good friends do not always compliment us; they don’t sugarcoat, and we don’t always agree with them. But we don’t fight with them; we agree to disagree— and we find common grounds together.

Our good friends take advantage of us, genuinely—and we take advantage of them, genuinely. They benefit from our time, our cars, our money, our love and vice versa. But they do not count what they do for us and we do not expect anything from them. They make us laugh for no reason and make us cry for good reasons. And we love them as much as they love us.

Friendship is good. It is sweet and sour, and it is necessary to our lives. Friendship helps us discover our tastes, our fears, and it helps us overcome them. It urges us to meet our limitations and opens our mind to new perspectives. Friendship makes us happy; it's healthy—it helps us stand when we fall and keeps us going.

Friendship is like a diamond, it’s rough, it’s subtle and sensitive, it’s beautiful!