Minjeong Lee / Friendship / Wed 1-2

Love sometimes injures; Friendship does so.

 

Roman philosopher Seneca once said that "Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures". Is this proverb always right? In my opinion, the later sentence would be right because love sometimes break one's heart, but the former statement cannot be true all the time. As love does, friendship also hurt, sometimes as that is the matter of relationship between two people, anyway. Friendship injures when the friend betrays, and when what I want for the one is larger than what the one can bear.

 

First, friendship hurts when friends betray the other. It is not the matter of being changed to enemy, but it is matter of breaking promise or belief. For example, one friend of mine sometimes called me with my nickname 'Ellie', which means elephant. I hated to be called so because the nickname was to make fun of my shape and full of lookism. She often called me with that nickname in front of other friends. I asked her to stop, but she continued. I was serious so I called her one night, then she said that she thought that it would be funny to call me so, and she could not imagine I would consider the problem seriously. I was disappointed. I had believed that she would be on my side when others make fun of me, but she did make fun of me instead. She has not been my enemy, but I was injured as long as I liked her so much and I had been sure that she would be on my side.

 

Secondly, friendship also injures when expectation is so large that makes disappointments. For example, I had my best friend when I was in middle school. She was my classmate when I was in 10th grade. She liked me, and took care of me. We spent a lot of time together. However, I had other friends in other classes, so I could not be with her everyday. She said she was jealous and she wanted to be with me all the time, but she did not want to be considered as stalker. I understood her, but her expectation was something that I could not handle. In this case, friendship does not always benefits but sometimes make one to be uncomfortable or overwhelmed, and the other to be saddened, disappointed or jealous.

 

 

In conclusion, I do not believe that "Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures". Friendship does not always benefits, but sometimes injures others as love does.