A close friend of mine mailed me to ask the difference between love and friendship. The argument was something like this:
What is the difference between love and friendship? Aren’t they the same??
I often get confused between the two. Isn't love there in friendship or isn't friendship there in love??? I love my friends and the person who I love is my friend. Then what is it that makes them different…
Many believe that love is the basis of all relations. Shouldn’t that be friendship? Take any relation and it begins with friendship. The understanding between the siblings is developed because they are friends with each other. The teacher student relation is built because the teacher understands the student as a friend would. The mother understands the child because she gets down to the level of the child and tries to make the child feel comfortable and be friends with him. Even the great love stories like “ Laila Majnu “, began with friendship that blossomed in their early days.
I feel I often mistake love with friendship. When we say we are looking for true love, do we actually mean that we are looking for a true friend to share everything we have? The good and the bad both. They are so mingled. How do you differentiate between the two?
And my answer was:
There is love in friendship and there is definitely friendship in love. In my opinion, there is no difference between love and friendship. But one thing, love usually ends up in lust and friendship does not end et all.. We tend to say that we are looking for true love when the person whom we might have assumed to be "in love with" did not act as per your expectations. We tend to give a higher place to the person whom we are in love than with whom we are friends in our social scales. We tend to vie for that person's attention at all times. A lover gets pardoned more times than a friend. We tend to fight easily with friends coz of the affection and understanding we share with that person but with love, we tend to first forgive that person for a mistake.
We need to be real careful before we give the status of a lover to a friend.
It is just a psychological aspect.. if your mind instructs you to accept a person as a lover, it gives you an entirely different outlook on that person. But unfortunately, many people would not have these thoughts in their mind and that is the reason, there will be conflicts, depressions, devdas's etc getting created.. suicides happening etc.
Another very important thing to be kept in mind is that we would have spent only 1/3 of our lives with our parents, the rest 2/3rds should be spent with friend(s) whom we call husbands / wives / lovers / fiance / fiancee etc.
That's my take on Love and Friendship.
I continued the same conversation thru IM with another close buddy of mine and her opinion on love/friendship was awesome.. I am posting the same here:
15-May -- Deleted personal clues!First U have this extreme bonding with a person which 2 people have
When two people are such strong friends that they cant live without talking to each other for a whole day,
They have to do everything together & then one of them feels that he / she want be with the other forever ,
Then U start thinking whether this is love, then start imagining whether U' d be comfortable if U were to make love with that person..if the thought isn't uncomfortable then I think it is love.
But before that this bonding (friendship) has to develop.
Comments
FRIEND - Few Relationships In Earth Never Die... i.e Friendhsip relationship..
But in Love, you would continue to have many relationships...
:)
any ways.. gud post buddy..
Cheers!
Arvi
Few words of mine in a very very generic terms.
Its not @ all a difficult situation when both people involved in the
relationship are of same sex [assuming their sexual orientation is straight ;)]. If we like a person then we befriend them or if we dont, we dont befriend them @
all. As simple as that, Thats the end of it. No confusion, no headaches err.. heartaches :)
The problem of categorizing the relationship to be love or friendship gets complex, only when two persons involved are of opposite sex.
Just scratching our head and thinking why is it so..? One of the reasons could be because the way we get treated by a friend of opposite sex differently than from the friends of the same sex as ours. Defining it under broader sense, the reason could be our understanding [or the lack of it] about the psyche of the opposite sex.
That could be a factor that adds to the confusion of whether its love or friendship...
You can have love without friendship.
You can have friendship without love.
Having both is complicated.. :)
The expectations change somewhat..
One needs to be mature enough to recognize times and aspects when friendship prevails and when love prevails.. there is a thin line..
From a woman's perspective I can give an example :
When your lover is sharing his deep fears, you need to be his friend and share in it rather than judge him and mollycoddle him as a lover probably would.
Personally, I have my best friend in my husband as well as a great lover in him.. and well from experience, I did learn when to be his friend and when to behave as his lover and he learnt the same too.. .
Again, its situational and one can only experience it but if one is clear about what a friend and lover has to do when... guess you can enjoy the best of both worlds..
I can tell you I do.. :) Its a perfect combo.. in a relationship