 When Georgia learns that Allison has offered to be her friend as a way to get closer to her older brother Bill, she is really miffed. If that is what friendship is for Allison, Georgia wants no part in it. This is the challenge for friendship. It is not undertaken as a way to accomplish something else, but as a value in itself. Trying to establish friendship for a purpose indicates rejection of value in having the other person as a friend. Friendship is not a way to accomplish things, though having friends can certainly help in doing things. Consider Allen and Carolyn, two very smart youngsters who met in Sunday school and found they had like interests. They became friends just because they were both set apart from others for being a little too smart. But they were together in their learning ability. They just enjoyed talking to each other. It was so much easier to speak when the other person was able to keep up with their thinking. Carolyn is curious about John Schultz, the school star center on the basketball team. He is such a handsome boy. She asks Allen, who has several classes with him, to arrange an introduction. He is not too keen on having her interest in someone else, but for the sake of their friendship, he tells her that he will see to it. He will arrange the opportunity. So what is the difference? It is that Allen and Carolyn are not friends in order to accomplish something else, but Carolyn is using her friendship for a purpose. The friendship continues, and Allen will not feel less her friend if he does what she asks. Friendship increases the resources that a person has available to do things, and that has value to almost everyone. It is natural for people to seek out friends, and it can be rewarding whenever there is something to be accomplished and friends can help. Most early friendships last for a time and grow or shrink as the people grow and mature. Learning to trust someone else never loses its value, but who to trust is likely to shift over time and shift with experience. And then there is learning. Learning that people are quite consistent. People do not become less worthy of trust, but only what you can trust them to do changes and stabilizes as they mature into adults. Friendship naturally becomes more effective as we become adults. We become more effective at evaluating what other people will do and how they value the trust that others put into them. Friendship carries into adult relations, including the most demanding trust of a life commitment to a family with someone other than your parents. This is a long-term trust relation, and generally entered into only with the expectation of a life commitment that is expected to last for decades. Of course, this level of trust is not a reasonable expectation until the person has slowed in their growth and stabilized in who they are. It is often not considered as reasonable until there is a desire to produce and raise a next generation, and that closes the loop on human friendships. With the coming of babies, we start the next cycle with that same ultimate trust of a helpless new family member who can do nothing but the most basic body functions and learned to trust parents. The cycle of learning begins anew, but with the former students being the adults who are entrusted with the care and development of their next generation. We have words that attach to various levels of trust, words like puppy love, marriage, and the like. These words are descriptions not human relations in themselves. What is human is mutual trust. That trust defines very human purpose in relying upon some other person. That is a natural human value that never goes away and never gets lost or overcome by other things. It is not the need or value of human trust that changes. It is our ability to make our own commitments and our own trustworthiness that mirrors the trustworthiness of those who are our friends. As human beings, we seek the value that being able to trust gives to us. We ever seek to live among trustworthy people. It starts with Brad who would intimidate little Timothy. It is being among friends that supports our being effective as a person. It is our own willingness to support others that invites them to enter into friendship with us. As teenagers, the choices are yours. Are you willing to be a friend to others and are others to find value in your friendship?