There is a nice little story told of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He started playing the piano when he was three years old. One day, his father asked him what he was doing and he replied, 'Looking for little notes which like each other.' A great definition of musical harmony which also tells us about us.
A friend is someone who likes you, it's as simple as that.
How wonderful is that feeling when you meet a friend who likes you, that special moment of excited anticipation when you both pull up a chair and order your coffee and lean in to listen to each other's news and celebrate each other's joys and commiserate each other's disappointments and hardships.
I am sure I am not alone in feeling that most of what I learned about friendship started way back in very early childhood. At first my friends were my family, mum dad and brother, then cousins neighbours and school friends. Whenever I got hurt or disappointed by a friend my mother would say 'if you want to have a friend you have got to be a friend', she was a constant source of inspiration. I longed to be like her, I thought it must be wonderful to be a grown up and never feel hurt or left out. 'Think about how they feel' she would say, and I always tried.
My father had a different approach to friends, 'God protect me from my friends, because I know my enemies, ' he would boom. 'If you can count the number of friends on one hand you are very lucky'.
I would be perplexed by this, I had loads of friends, a whole class full. 'Ah' he would say 'Everybody's friend is nobody's friend.'
It's easy to confuse affection for approval. Sometimes we crave someone's friendship, at some stages in life we are more needy than others, more alone. Once our parents have gone the only people who will really love us unconditionally. It's a terrible moment, one cutting the rope tying you to an anchor.
