reynardo | Things you should know about real friends.

Friends are the people you can trust to be honest when you need it, whether it hurts or not.

You've probably heard that sort of stuff before, but it's true. A good friend is the one who will take you aside at a party and tell you that your eyeliner is making you look like a panda bear. They'll turn up when you've been moping in a dark house for far too long and make you go out and see the daylight for once.

They'll listen sympathetically for a long time while you rant and rave and complain about how unfair the world is and how life is so miserable that you wish you weren't there anymore, then they'll quietly and lovingly suggest that you might need to see a professional counsellor to sort things out. And they'll be saying this because they love you and do not want you hurting any more.

True friends will speak up and say "I do love you, but I think that guy you're seeing is being rotten to you and not treating you the way you ought to be treated." You won't believe them at the time, and will argue and try to brush off their statements, but if you trust them you will then have had the nudge to take a second look at the guy to see if they're being reasonable. And when, six months later, you finally admit that the guy was treating you terribly and with no respect, you acknowledge that the friends were right and trust them even more. And you will do the same in reverse, partly because you don't like seeing them hurt by their own infatuation, and partly because you don't want them to turn to you afterwards and cry "Why didn't you say something at the time", but mainly because friends are honest with each other and even if it hurts to say something, it will hurt more later if they don't.

When the finace makes you break all the connections with the friends and throws out or breaks any wedding presents they gave the pair of you, it's the friends you will head for when she also throws you out. And they will love you and listen to you get her out of your system for months on end. And then they will tell you when they've heard enough.

My very good friends will tell me if an outfit I want to wear just doesn't work. They'll suggest things to make it work. So when I show them how I look in a new outfit and they tell me I am gorgeous, I have to admit that they would only say that if I am.

And as a result, because you can trust them to tell you when you've been stupid, or when you look sick, or when you're going crazy, you can trust them when they tell you you weren't stupid, or you're going to get well, or that they think your life, crazy as it seems, is actually going in a whole new, wonderful, opportunity filled direction. You have to believe them when they tell you you are incredibly sexy and worth lusting after. You gratefully believe them when they tell you you did the right thing (or at least not the wrong thing) in a major stuff-up, and you sigh and lean on them as they explain how for once it wasn't you who broke the good wine glass and spilled red wine over a new white carpet.

I do love my friends. Very much.