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| Beware of faux friends |
Probably nothing hurts more badly than being back stabbed by someone whom you had always considered your friend! But that's how it goes with some unfortunate ones.
A few years ago, I had purchased a jacket made from faux leather that had the label of Giorgio Armani embossed on it. It was beautiful and kept me warm whenever I wore it and it looked so real that anyone could have mistaken it for a genuine leather jacket. But it wasn't. And so it got frayed in just a few months of its purchase. Because outwardly though the material almost exactly resembled real leather, deep down at its core, it was just fake leather, made up of synthetic polymers! So how could it have lasted for long?
Faux friends are just like that. Artificial.
Of course, ideally all friends should be treated as equal (a friend is a friend and so why classify and judge them? After all, friendship should always be unconditional and non-judgemental.. isn't it?). However it is also very essential to identify our real friends. Only then would we be able to feel that aura of completeness and bliss that one feels when he/she is among his/her real friends. Therefore we should beware of deceptive people who are not real friends, rather they are people who love to use the idea of friendship to take advantage of us as and when they need us. They are "faux" friends or superficial friends or fake friends (whatever one may call them) who only look for their own selfish interests to get fulfilled.
"Haven't we been selfish at times?", one may ask. Of course we have been. All of us are selfish to some degree. But more than one's selfishness, it's when one is being inconsiderate in a friendship that it hurts the other person. It makes him feel being 'used and then abandoned', it leaves him feeling neglected, as if he exists just as an object or 'a toy to play with' for the selfish friend!
The bonding in any friendship is due to the exchange of emotions and due to the helping and sharing and caring... both the friends in a friendship give and take from each other without keeping count. We all gain from friendship. If we didn’t, we wouldn't have made friends in the first place. We like and love our friends because we get something out of them. And there’s no sin in that. But not for the material benefits from them, rather it's how they make us feel when they are around, is what makes us love our friends. Be it for their trustworthiness, their honesty, the promises kept, the way they inspire us, their humour, their keeping confidentiality, easy communication or their support during our rough weather -- it could be because of any one or all of these qualities that we love them. But the faux friends take friendship like a business deal (so much so that the 'business' should profit them at all costs, at all times... If not, then in their eyes, you are not worth having as a friend). They are more dangerous than your foes in that, with your foes, you at least know where they are coming from!
The distinct telltale signs of such faux friends are:
1. These are people who come to you only when they need some help or want some work to get done by you. Being skillful contrivers that they are, they will very cleverly camouflage their ulterior motives and will very craftily manipulate things to get their work done. To start with, they appear distressed and reliant to win your affection. And once they have their claws dug in deep, do they start manipulating to get their motives fulfilled. There is nothing wrong in taking help from a friend in times of need. Haven't we taken our friend's help when we are in some trouble? We can't expect that people, in return, would always appreciate us for everything that we do for them, but perhaps all of us do expect that those people would at least take note of our efforts that we made to help them and not just take our efforts for granted!
Ungrateful... that's what the 'faux' friends are.
2. These people remain your friends only when you agree with them -- only when you unconditionally accept and support their views. For such people, a friend fulfills his/her duty only by taking their side and supporting their decisions blindly - no questions asked.
3. These are people who come to you only when they are bored or do not have other options available at that time to talk to or when they are feeling down and depressed. There is nothing wrong in taking a friend's help when feeling down/depressed or talking to friends when feeling bored. But to use your friend merely as a mood enhancer, as an object for entertainment, is definitely not friendship. For such selfish friends, your good humour or lending your ears to patiently listen to them to make them feel happy or distracted, are the only qualities they want to see in you. Such people wouldn't be interacting with you at the other times because they would have other available options.
Everyone desires and deserves value. Will my simply saying that I am your 'Friend' make me your 'Friend'? Probably not. Not mere words but our actions can only make us friends.. isn't it? The irony of it all is that such selfish so-called friends wouldn’t even know that they are being selfish in friendship, because all that they have been interested in all the time is their own happiness and the fulfillment of their motives!
Thus not all friends are really friends. Would you take an opportunist as your friend? Probably not.
So is really "Har Ek Friend Jaruri Hota Hai"? Friends definitely jaruri hote hain, but fake people as friends? Bilkul nahin. Like books, Friends too should be well chosen (even if they are few in numbers).
