My Philosophy of Friendship

Friendship is an investment and I take my investments seriously.

Investment in friendship does not necessarily lead to spending money. However, on some occasions investing a little money to know the person better is a necessary evil.

In financial investment, things are straightforward. The good outcome is when you gain a profit and the bad outcome is when you lose money. It's a little different in friendship. The outcomes are assessed differently. I assess friendship by looking at the direction of the investment - is it one way or two?

One-way investments happen when someone becomes the absolute taker with no intentions of reciprocating in whatever circumstance. Unfortunately this type of people are a disappointment in friendship investment. These are people who will kick your face when you are down and knock you out when you are of no more benefit to them. Fortunately, this type of person is easily identified. Which is why I mentioned earlier that spending money to exorcise this type of person is a necessary evil. It is also a stop-loss in future investments. There is no room for such friendship in my portfolio of investment, so I get rid of them in a flash.

Two-way investments happen when there is a dynamic exchange of investments between both parties - mutual trust, respect, empathy and positive vibe with each other. Two-way investments are rare and far between. That is why, a good friendship is hard to come by.

Backed by this philosophy, I draw parallels to what I'm doing elsewhere in life. For example, I have started the cull in Facebook; trimming down from 683 "friends" to 400ish. Of this, only a select few are granted visibility. I am sure I too am assessed the same way by other people.