You all must have heard stories about friendships from your parents or must have seen movies like Sholay, 3 Idiots, or Dil Chahata Hai, which taught us what a good friendship looks like. These stories teach us that friends are important for living a healthy life.

Sometimes we fight with our friends, argue with them, but still stay together. Ever wondered why friends stay together for a long time? What is the reason for their bonding? I believe that the reason behind a strong friendship is that we see ourselves in our friend. I remember my teacher once told me that “Find Friends, who are somewhat like you”.

Those who find things funny just like us, those who love to travel just like us, and those who support us when we need them. Jai and Veeru’s natures were different, but they were still friends because together they had the ability to tackle any problem. When Raju, one of the three idiots, jumped from the window of the dean’s office, Rancho and Farhan ran to his rescue, bringing him back to life. We have all been in situations where if we didn’t have any friends, we would be in serious trouble or at a place we couldn’t even imagine.

Let us see how to find friends who stay forever

These are the signs that indicate a long-lasting friendship.

Time

Some studies by senior psychologists say that if you are friends with someone for more than 7 years, it is likely that you will be friends forever. The first year goes into knowing a person, like what are their likes and dislikes? Do we feel comfortable around them? Later, we get to know about their past incidents, family, their deep interests and passions, and then we find ourselves with them on every good and bad occasion.

Whether it is our birthday or we have a heartbreak, we know whom we have to call or meet. They are one call away when you are in trouble and go beyond limits when it comes to saving you from anything. Your family knows whom they have to call when your phone is not reachable, and these friends have the talent to make things up when your parents call. The answers they give to your parents are unbeatable. Sometimes things do go wrong.

Let me tell you an incident.

One day, me and my two best friends planned a sleepover at a friend’s uncle’s flat. As that friend secretly sneaked the keys to the flat from his home, he couldn’t tell his parents the exact place where he was going, so he told them that he was going to Hardik’s place, and Hardik said that he was going to Yash’s place, and I said that I was going to Akash’s place. Everything was going according to plan; we had dinner and enjoyed ourselves. Aakash’s phone rang, and it was his father.

He picked up the call and asked him where he was. He said very confidently that he was at Hardik’s place. His father replied, “I went to Hardik’s place and his parents said that he was at Yash’s place, so I came to Yash’s place looking for you.” His phone was on speaker and we could hear all that conversation. Our faces went pale. We immediately ran to my place and met his father and talked to him. Luckily, everything was under control and we enjoyed the rest of the night laughing about this incident.

Incidents like these remain in our memory forever, and we keep revising these incidents by telling other people about them. Friendship is all about living the moments and laughing while remembering them forever.

Shield

There are times when some new people come into our lives and try to sabotage our existing relationships with our friends, and we often get confused about who exactly is our real friend.

At that time, the real friends start maintaining a distance from us, but they don’t let us go far from their sight. They give us the space to think and analyse who we exactly like. Is it the new person or them? As this formula is quite old to test a friendship, it doesn’t take much time to realise that often the new people in our lives are for their benefit and want to manipulate us.

The good friends wait for us and accept us with our ugly faces when we go back to them. They save us from them by letting us go and think, but are always around us like an invisible shield. Even if we are not talking to them and they get to know that we are in some trouble, they come to us with flash speed. They do not say anything when they help us because they do not consider that help as a favour, but their responsibility as friends to help us.

Money

Money is something that can ruin any relationship. It has the power to destroy people’s lives, but can’t do any harm to those who never give importance to it. If you are friends with someone from your school days or college days, you must have seen that your pocket wasn’t always filled with money. There were days when you used to have ten or twenty rupees in your pocket and used to eat or drink something with it.

Then some good days came when you had some more money, but were there any days when you fought over money with your friend? Did you have to ask again and again for your money? Did you decide that you are not going to help your friend anymore because he does not understand that your money is also hard-earned money? If not, then your friendship bond is financially secured too because there can be days when you need money and you go to your friend asking for it, but if you are not good at returning money, he won’t be able to trust you.

This reminds me of another incident.

I borrowed an expensive camera from my friend to shoot something. I kept it with me for a while, and by mistake, I lost it. I immediately told my friend that I had lost it. Now, in this situation, any person would freak out, but he tried to understand that I did it by mistake. He was so good that he even did not ask me to buy him a new car or give him the money. Though I gave him the money, this incident made me realise how good my friend is.

If I was there at his place, I would have freaked out, but he handled the situation so maturely that I started respecting him more. I believe it was his trust in me that I would understand that I had lost someone’s precious item and would surely return it or give him the money.

Maturity

We all realise that friendship also changes over time as we have different priorities in our lives at different stages in life. We can’t be laughing, traveling, and drinking all the time. We all have some responsibilities which we have to fulfill, and that is the reason adult friends are the best friends. They understand the things happening in your life, they understand your problems and they support you whenever they can.

I say whenever they can because there will be times when they are not around us and are unable to help us, but when we cry, they also cry, and I believe in adulthood, all we need is someone to understand our pain and cry with us. We all know that the old days won’t come back no matter how hard we try. We learn to live with responsibilities and problems by having one thing in mind: we have one friend with whom we can share our problems and happiness.

If they are not rich, we don’t show off our new car in front of them. We found comfort in the back seat of the car, but the bike’s back seat also feels good with that friend.

If you are thinking right now about how to find friends who will stay with you till your last breath or you want to meet new people in the city who match your vibe, I suggest you join Alyke, where you can meet new friends who are just like you. Who loves to go out just like you? Who loves to play cricket just like you? It may sound like magic, but at Alyke it is true.

 Log on to www.joinalyke.com and meet friends near you who share your vibe.