When speaking of the word "friends", I would think of those good memories with my friends.

If asked the definition of it when I was in high-school, I would say friends were those who were striving hard together with me for Gaokao. At that time, a smile, a encouragement and a comfort from them would make me rather happy. Actually, I didn't have too many conversations with others, but I felt everyone were very pure and simple, so despite of few words, we still feel we were very good friends.

After I entered the college, I didn't have many connections with them except three intimate ones. Because of my introverted personality, I really lived very hard at the first year. I found that the girls in my classmates were very troublesome, there were only seven but still belonged to three groups. Of course, I alone was belonging to one group. While that didn't mean I had poor relationship with them. Compared with them, I found I felt much better being with those boys in my class. Boys would not care too much about something, and most of them were very easygoing guys. So, I had lots of male friends. Because I had the best performance in study in my class, so before each examination, they would come and study with me. And when I was preparing for the post-graduate entrance examination, I also made many friends with students of other majors, because we all stayed in the library all the day. Whenever I recalled that period time, I would always feel very happy and contented.

Within the three years in post-graduate school, I had several conversations with my college classmates, while I found that each time it was always me being the one initiating the conversation, and they seldom voluntarily contacted with me. So after several times, I really felt down and frustrated, and I didn't want to do that any more. I once had a deep reflection about myself, I found that most of my intimate friends were of the similar personalities or background with me. As I was growing older, I found that I was gradually away from those intimate friends too. Because, most of them got married or even had babies, unlike before, it seemed that they wouldn't like to listen to my stories, complaints or other things. It was even hard to start a conversation we both had interest in. Gradually, I found that friends were not friends any more, at least different like before in my heart. Even if I asked them out and invited them a dinner on weekends, they would had these or those excuses, as if they were very, very busy. More than one time, I felt like I didn't have any friends and I felt very lonely.

I don't know what about your situations with your friends. Whenever I think of the past sweet memories, I miss them very much, meanwhile, I would feel much sad now. If I am asked the same question about the definition of "friends", I really don't know the exact answer. Because things are changing, people are changing, while my good memories is staying at the past. Maybe, it is my fault, I should change my mind too, but I really couldn't accept and adjust to the situation in a short time. For me, I'd like to come here if I feel unhappy or happy, good praises, suggestions or even criticism would make me better, because I feel friends here are always there for me even if I don't know much about people here. So thank you all.