On Broken Friendship

“A forward (perverse) man soweth strife, and a whisperer separateth the best of friends.” A broken friendship is usually caused by some improper behavior of either side, such as misunderstanding, competition in career, fighting for boy or girl friends, financial problems, and so on, among which only the friendship broken by misunderstanding worth repairing, because true friendship can never be broken by the financial problems, or competition. I think, all of us understand the meaning of true friendship – a treasure in our life which cannot be obtained or measured by money.

Therefore, when we try to know how to deal with the broken friendship, we need first to think of what kind of friendship what we have with whom we were friends. Then, we decide what we should do about the friendship. If it is the friendship that we think worth repairing, we will try our best to repair the relationship; if it is the friendship that there is no need to for us to do anything about it, we just forget about it.

A proverb by Walter Winchell goes like this, “A friend is one who walks in when others walk out.” Therefore, we should try our best to repair a true friendship, and the misunderstanding can be eliminated by our efforts. We all know that we have friends in different levels – some are acquaintance, some are bosom friends, or intimate. If a friendship cannot stand the lure of money or other things, it is not a true friendship.

Mike and I talked about the issue of renewable friendship a few days ago, and my view is that if a true friendship is between the cracks, it is necessary to fill the gap. I told Mike about a story of mine. In high school, Jenny and I are intimate friends. She and I share the same interests, and both of us have very strong characters in the eyes of the other students. Both of us are invincible in any competitions. There was a chance for both of us to be chosen as a leader of a team. Jenny didn’t get the chance. Since then, there seemed a gap between us. Gradually, there was no communication between us as more.

However, after a year, we both found that we lacked something in our life, and there was no person to share our opinions, to shoot the wind about our interests. We realized that the position of a lead of the team was not so important, and it shouldn’t have been the barrier between us to have a good friendship. Very simple, Jenny called I, and we met again in a café, and we talked overnight about the things since we broke up. From then on, we mutually encourage each other, and help each other, up to now. We have overcome lots of difficulties, and we have enjoyed the treasure and joy of our friendship. Though it was a very simple story, Mike understood what I mean.