Passage 1

Friendship and friends continue to remain central to our lives. The relationship that we share with our friends is grounded in a mutual concern as our friends help us in shaping up our personalities as well. Even in this age of online social networking, the need of expanding the network of friends, whether online or offline remains a primary concern for people. We may have a very vague understanding of what makes a friend but we all want to have a good many friends around us.

Research has shown that the quality and nature of your friends are one of the key influencing factors in achieving happiness and satisfaction. Friends often affect the health and energy of a person as well. More and more people are increasingly turning towards their friends for support and mutual sharing rather than communicating to their relatives; this sociological phenomenon has escalated the desire to make more friends. Though friendship is a relationship developed between two individuals marked by a voluntary, emotional and mutual concern, there are certain steps, which, if followed, can win you friends or at least help you get close to those whom you want to make friends with.

The first step to make friends with someone is to make them like you. If they don’t like you in the first place, it is unlikely that they’ll be eager to become your friends. To let someone know that you are genuinely interested in them, simple gestures like a little smile and calling him by his first name can lay the basic foundation. To make the other person feel important you need to be a good listener and encourage the other person to talk. Give your honest and sincere opinion but do not overtly criticize or make fun of him or her.

The second step of making someone your friend is to develop a mutual consideration between each other. You need to share his or her perspective and for that it is necessary for you to develop a tendency to see things from the other person’s point of view. To become best of friends you must show a genuine concern and consideration for your friend’s desires and opinions.

The third and final step towards friendship is to show your unconditional support and encouragement towards your friend. Moreover, you also need to be very clear about your expectations from your friend. If what you expect from the person you want to befriend matches with what that person can and want to contribute in friendship, the developing friendship between you and your friend is assured to grow, making both of you gratified with mutual emotional bonding.

Friendship has overwhelming significance on both social and individual levels. Friendship doesn’t only provide us with emotional as well as practical support but it also helps us improve our personal identities. So it is quite natural to feel the urge to reach out and make new friends, expanding your friend’s circle. Friendship remains familiar yet quite ambiguous (模糊的) for our deeper understanding, but then again, friends remain the most important ingredients in the recipe of life!

The relationship between friends is based on ______.