The Sword of Friendship

 (4) The Sword of Friendship

1-31-91

by Fazeel Chauhan

Majeed is a graduate student of sociology. I recently met him in one of my classes. This is what he had to say: "Sometimes I don't know who to trust. Due to some of my recent experiences, I am very afraid of getting close to people.

"I am a foreign student and have no family here. So my friends are very important to me. But making friends is not easy, specially in Los Angeles. Here, everybody is very busy in their own world, trying to survive. Sometimes, I'm not sure who my friends really are. I've been hurt so many times by friends in the past that now I have developed a defensive attitude. In order to protect myself, I don't get close to anyone and I avoid friendships. The closer you get to someone, the more deeply they can hurt you. It seems like friendships are very temporary here. I feel like "friends" just hang around for a while, until they are able to take advantage of me in some way. There are times when I have five or six friends. Soon afterwards, they fall off one by one, like autumn leaves. Then I find myself all alone again.

"You may think that I'm over-reacting, but there are too many examples to recount. A few people I know here used to be my friends in Pakistan. But they changed after coming here, and now we are like strangers and don't get along with each other. In the beginning it was very hard to accept that they were not my friends any more. Some of the friends I made here, had the Jeckyl and Hyde syndrome. In front of me they claimed to be my friends. But a time came when I witnessed their other side. It turned out that they were just using me and were not sincere.

Naeem, was a very good friend of mine for about a year. One day, I was very surprised to see him acting like a stranger. His friends told me he had a drug problem. I offered him my help, but he completely denied ever using drugs. I was very disturbed to find that I didn't really know him and that he had the ability to look me straight in the eyes and tell me white lies. I thought I was such a fool to have believed the many lies he must have told me in the past. He was dishonest with me and I could no longer trust him. When you find out that someone you care about lied and deceived you, it makes you crazy because you don't know where the lies end and where the truth begins.

"Aqeel is one of my married friends. We both had a mutual friend named Elyas and he was a single man. The three of us spent many weekends together. Then we found out that Elyas was openly making passes at Aqeel's wife. We were really disgusted. This was a man whom I had known for many years. I was very disappointed and hurt. Now I don't know what this friendship was all about. I wasted so much of my valuable time with this hypocrite. I can't convey how badly this hurt Aqeel.

"Many problems with friendships occurred when money was involved. I loaned money to a few of my friends. They usually were in a desperate situation and asked me to do them a favor. I helped them when they needed me, but they weren't there when I needed them. Often, they would not return the loan for a long time and would forget all about it. Then I would have to look bad and chase them to get my money back. They know very well that as students, we barely have enough money to survive. We can't even afford to give spare change to a homeless person. Some would turn the situation around and accuse me of valuing money more than the friendship. But what about their end of the obligation, their promise, their commitment? If they valued my friendship enough, they would have paid me back on time and in full, instead of taking advantage of me.

"I am very hurt to find that I cannot tell when my friends are lying to me. I trust them so much that I don't expect them to deceive me. Why can't they be as sincere and loyal to me as I am to them? I don't think my expectations are unreasonable. In Pakistan, my friends and I truly trusted each other. But here, I can't tell who I should trust and who is insincere and who's lying. On the outside, there is this pretentious front, but inside, they are totally different. I'm never sure of what their motives are."

I could relate to Majeed's experiences. When I first met him, he tried to avoid me too. But eventually, I was able to get through the walls he had erected around him to protect himself. I tell him not to lose hope, that there are many good people out there. For example, my best friend Javed, who now lives in Australia. The thousands of miles between us did not affect our friendship because the trust and commitment are so strong. Deep within us, we have the understanding that we'll be good friends for a long time. Whenever I talk to him, it's like he's there right beside me, like he never left. I am fortunate enough to have a few good friends who genuinely love me. But I've had bad experiences too, just like Majeed.

It is tempting to become selfish and egocentric, like the negative people in our lives. But then how can we live with our selves? How do we go to sleep at night knowing that we've hurt somebody? How do we rationalize our bad behavior? How do we convince ourselves that the damage we did, served a "good" purpose?

I'm sure, there are a lot of Javeds out there. If we assume that there are not, we are doing injustice to them and to ourselves by depriving each other of a valuable friendship. If we have no friends, then life seems meaningless. Humans are after all, social animals. We need to socialize with each other for our survival, much more than we realize. Life seems like death when we have no friends. So we have to take the risk to reach out and connect with somebody. Life is a series of risks and gambles. If you don't roll the dice, you'll never win. You may find a person like Javed, or you may find someone like Elyas. We should be aware of the risks, but should not let fears rule our lives. If you are someone's friend, please be kind and value the trust that has been given to you. Strangers can't hurt us nearly as much as friends can. Friends can cause us deep emotional hurt which can have longterm psycholological effects on us. The poet sufi Bulleh Shah in particular stresses:

Don't break anyone's heart

Because God lives there

In each of us there is an animal; the devil within. But there is also a saint inside all of us. Let the saints take over and chit chat about God's beautiful creations. There are too many miracles to discover and not enough time