I'll be your friend! (Until You're not around...)

Friends.

We confide in them, make jokes with them, laugh with them, cry with them... Backstab them?

No?

Are you sure?

It's a shame, I find, that the seemingly closest friendships are standing on a very narrow rope bridge, stretching over rocky rapids in the middle of a wind storm. The worst part is that instead of these girls working it out quietly between each other, the exact opposite happens. The moment someone is around to offer an ear, it all comes out. All the things that this person does that annoy you, all the hypocritical things that they say and in the worst of cases, all of the things that they told you in confidence.

To me, friendship should stretch beyond all the arguments; it shouldn't matter how big, small, serious, or petty they are. If after it still doesn't work, there is no reason for someone to go around telling anyone willing to lend an ear, all of the things that your once-friend told you in confidence.

Too often, people forget all the good things that they went through with a person, because they are too busy being consumed by the anger and hurt that comes with the end of a friendship. I've promised myself that no matter what may happen between me and someone else, I will never spread their business, because it's something that I think is really spiteful and low.

Instead of focusing so much time and energy slagging someone off, people should try and remember why they were once so close to that person, that they felt they could tell you something like that.

The same rings true for relationships. They can often turn really nasty after a break-up with the whole, "he's got a small..." and "she let me..." rumour mills spinning around. Do break-up suddenly make everyone forget that they once really liked (or loved) this person? If that's the case, I'm pretty scared of being in a relationship. I really like the idea of remaining friends with my exs, just because I don't see why we shouldn't be.

Break-ups, whether they're between friends or partners, really shouldn't be the beginning of a never-ending battle between two people who used to like each other enough to be together as much as you are with close friends and partners. It should be a mutual understanding and truce that things didn't work out and that the time to call it a day has come. Don't be the one to throw the first punch, because it's YOU who will look bad and don't stoop low enough to retaliate, otherwise no one will ever be able to trust you and it's not you who deserves to not be trusted.