Too many people want others to be their friends, but they don’t give friendship back. That is why some friendships don’t last very long. To have a friend, you must learn to treat your friend the way you want your friend to treat you. Learning to be a good friend means learning three rules: be honest(诚实的);be generous(宽宏大量的);be understanding.

Honesty is where a good friendship starts. Friends must be able to trust(信任) one another. If you don’t tell the truth, people usually find out. If a friend finds out that you haven’t been honest, you may lose your friend’s trust. Good friends always count on one another to speak and act honestly.

Generosity means sharing and sharing makes a friendship grow. You don’t have to give your lunch money or your clothes, or enjoyments, like your hobbies and your interests. Naturally you will want to share your ideas and feelings. These can be very valuable to a friend. They tell your friend what is important to you. By sharing them, you help your friend know you better.

Sooner or later everyone needs understanding and help with a problem. Something may go wrong at school. Talking about the problem can make it easier to solve. Turning to a friend can be a first step in solving the problem. So to be a friend you must listen and understand. You must try to put yourself in your friend’s place so you can understand the problem better.

No two friendships are ever exactly alike (相同). But all true friendships have three things in common. If you plan to keep your friendships, you must practice honesty, generosity and understanding.

Almost all kids pretend their dolls can talk or that their toys possess magical powers.【小题1】A study conducted by researchers at the University of Oregon found that by age 7, 37 percent of children had an invisible friend. In fact, imaginary companions are quite common in many people’s childhood.

And while there’s nothing wrong with kids who don’t have imaginary friends, children who have imaginary companions shouldn’t be a cause for concern either.

【小题2】

Some research indicates that kids with imaginary friends are more likely to be firstborn or only children, but that doesn’t mean imaginary friends are just for kids who are lonely. In fact, studies show kids who have imaginary friends are quite social and creative.

【小题3】On the contrary, they can be a tool that kids use to cope with their troubles. Kids who have experienced trauma (精神创伤)，for example, may rely on imaginary companions to help them through times.

While some parents worry that the invention of an imaginary friend means a child doesn’t have any real friends, imaginary friends don’t indicate a lack of social skills.【小题4】

Talking to an imaginary friend can even improve a child’s communication skills.【小题5】Consequently, studies show kids with imaginary friends may be better at understanding a listener or observer’s perspective.

Like anyone else, I have social media personalities that I like to follow. I watch their Insta stories, YouTube videos and generally keep track of what they are up to by means of social media. These “celebrities (名人)” encourage me to pursue my dreams, and unlike my physical friends, are often more accessible — just a YouTube click away.

So when I found myself telling a story the other day to one of my friends at a cafe and then casually referring to one of these online personalities as “my friend”, I suddenly became aware of the blurred (模糊的) line between my physical and virtual social lives. I was retelling a YouTuber’ s story about how to practice appreciation as if it were my story to tell. The scary part is that it came so naturally that I had to pause and think twice about what had just come out of my mouth. How did I get to the point of referring to someone I had never actually spoken with as a “friend”?

Between trying to make a living and maintaining social relationships, it has become especially easy for millennials (those born between the early 1980s and 1990s) to turn to artificial social closeness to meet their basic human needs for social interactions. So how do we really know who our friends are in a world where the term “friend” seems so blurred? Is it right to call someone a friend who you’ ve never spoken with in real life?

Sometimes I worry that my online friendships are taking away the time I could be spending forming meaningful relationships in real life. In an article in Psychology Today, Alex Pattakos claims that our quest to create more and more friends through popular social media platforms has led to us feeling more disconnected in reality. His research states that we can only maintain around 150 real friendships and the desire to have more connections leads to emotional attachments to online celebrities, referred to as parasocial interactions, and consequently detachment (分离) from our real life connections.

Do you make a distinction between your online and offline “friends” ? If so, how?