Introduction
In my exemplification essay, I intend to show examples of friendship and how they may occur in real-life situations. I shall take examples from the experiences of other students in my college.
Defining friendship as it occurs in real life
A friendship occurs when a bond is made between two people that go beyond being an acquaintance. A friendship that is healthy should contain respect, where both people respect each other in a somewhat equal fashion. The two should also care about the fate of the other, and may also care about the emotional and physical wellbeing of the other. A friendship may also include acts, be they of kindness or in general, that work for the best interest of the other without requiring anything tangible in return.
Example 1 – acts of kindness without requiring anything in return
An example of this includes when a young man was dumped by the girlfriend he was living with. The relationship had gone on since school up into college whereupon the two had moved in together. The man’s friend, upon discovering that his friend was moving out of the house he and his girlfriend shared, went over the help him move out of his house into a family member’s house.
Example 2 – acting in the best interest of the other person
A young woman repeatedly saw the partner of her friend flirt with other women and he appeared on many occasions to be taking it a little too far. The woman did not want to tell her friend just in case she was overreacting, plus it may have damaged their relationship. Instead, she spoke to one of the women that the man was flirting with and convinced her to show her girlfriend the text messages that the man had been sending her. That way her friend was able to see what her boyfriend was up to without it damaging the friendship between the two women.
Example 3 – providing support for the other person without any tangible reward
There are numerous occasions in college when students have gone out of their way to be there for their friends during times of illness and grief without ever receiving anything in return. One may assume that if material rewards were not received that maybe they hoped the other would provide the same type of support when they were ill or upset, and yet there are many times when the person giving never receives it back (possibly because it was not needed) and yet the friendship remained strong.
Conclusion
There are plenty of examples of friendship in a real-life situation where people do things for other people without any sort of tangible reward. There are occasions when a friend looks out for another person’s interests, and times when acts of kindness are given because of friendship alone. There is an argument to be had around if the actual friendship is reward in itself, which would then mean that acts of kindness and caring are still motivated by self-interest.
