Nothing is more enjoyable than a movie evening and dinner with a close friend. But then this may not be the close friend’s idea of fun. This I discovered quite to my surprise when I was dumped four times in a row, all the time realising my friend had chosen more “important” options over a tête-a-tête.

You see, when she’d made the date, that evening had been event-less. But when more important occasions presented themselves, she felt I’d be there anyway in her life. Waiting. The occasions would not come again, and along with them the chance to move up the social ladder and create more relevance for her social station.

Funnily enough, I had, instead declined my parties and dinners just to spend quality time with this same friend.

Have you noticed how in a world moving toward dehydrated single women and an arid landscape of recession, people don’t realise the comfort and contentment in relationships and the security of good friends?

Ironically, no sooner have you been “acquired” than they are off to look for the next conquest. So then in the New Age you are an “opportunity”, not a friend. Or you’re in a passionate romance and so friends automatically take the backseat.

In relationships that truly count we take for granted our loved ones, and make the effort with new entrants we wish to charm, forgetting to be loving, forgiving and attractive to the persons who enrich our lives. Our “Ps & Qs” become irrelevant with our near and dear ones and we are utmostly sociable with outsiders.

This is also a fallout of the “I’m not ok, you’re not ok syndrome” where people with a deep-seated low self-esteem do not love themselves in the first place, so anyone who loves and nurtures them is up to no good anyway. Because they have to be “off their rockers” to love them?

If you feel chronically like a victim in your own life, you are most likely inadequate in a relationship in some way. Therefore, you end up taking your friends for granted and everything takes priority but the truly enriching persons in your life. So it is important for you to do some introspection, because you definitely need friends to be there for you.

All of us do need to feel cosseted and loved. Friendship and love is where you are yourself, you grow with each other, to unfurl your own wonder in the company of your friend and help her unfurl hers in your company. And to have a good friend, one has to be one. That joy of companionship for the sake of companionship, that inspiration that we feel in each other, that sense of well-being and comfort to me epitomises friendship.

The author is a lifestyle columnist and a designer. You can mail her at nishjamwal@gmail.com