Maintain your friendship – Why is it important to have a support system?

Good friendship is the root of a lasting relationship that provides a deeper closeness between two people. It deepens the strong intimacy of both friends and for that strong relationship to last longer, there must be some other interventions, say a support mechanism that leads to a stronger friendship.

It would be useless to be too close friends, when after a while it would just break up and end in frustration for both parties. A good support system, therefore, is vital and must be applied.

6 ways to maintain your friendship

1. Close companionship. When I was in high school, I met a good classmate in my first year. He was a nice guy and we became very close from the first time we met until we graduated. After we graduated, we broke up, he went to the city to find a job, and I continued my studies at the university. During our high school days, we always worked together on our homework, school projects, ate together, slept together. etc Some of our classmates even called us twins because we are inseparable. That’s how close our friendship was.

2. Share. We always share what we have, food, school supplies and everything we use at school. The loss of one is the loss of the other. It is our great advantage over the rest of our peers because, we always give priority to our needs, we strive to make paths that allow us to always be ahead of our peers to present our school’s project. It is in our sharing of works that made us closer.

3. Support and concern. Whenever there is an activity at our school that requires physical involvement on our part, we always come together to support each other in sharing the burden of carrying the heavy load we are lifting. The work becomes easy for us because by working together, we could easily finish the task given to us with ease.

4. Compliments. This is pretty much a support system that we tend to practice like a good friend. When we keep compliments on the way we dress, comb our hair, speak with good manners to the elderly and peers. We each give each other advice. When one steps out of line, the other immediately finds ways to correct the mistake. Anything that made our actions not in accordance with the group’s desired mores, we would meticulously correct on the spot.

5. Social interaction. Like good friends, we would give each other some advice on how to mingle with people at social gatherings. Sometimes during the dances we would observe good manners such as approaching the woman to dance with us and thanking her after the dance. In any occasion involving many people, proper etiquette always plays a big part in our agenda so as not to be uncomfortable with others’ standards. We learn from what we see and tell each other which one to follow and which one to ignore.

6. Privacy. Due to our closeness to each other, we have a warm relationship and our trust shines through in a stronger friendship. When her mother was in the hospital, we both shared helping her siblings, taking care of her and comforting her in her problems. I expressed my concerns to her by way of giving her my full support to alleviate her loneliness caused by her mother’s illness.

These support systems I mentioned provide my close friend with a strong relationship that didn’t end our friendship until he died 30 years ago from an accident. He was struck by a stray bullet directly through his heart and died instantly.