Friends, I don't know where to start from. I don't really have them in spades but the ones that I have, make sure they call a spade a spade, and that's what I adore them for. Every friend in your life brings a certain energy, the energy that we all need to flourish personally and keep moving in life. Sometimes, you become friends with someone instantaneously as if you were fated to have that person in your life. Sometimes, despite knowing someone for too long, it takes eons to acknowledge them as friends. You will find them in the most unlikely places and meet in some of the most unusual circumstances; some you will not even remember where you picked them from, whereas there will be some, whom you will have found in your kindergarten playground (scratching pants and looking lost). There are just too many of them and of different ilk; take a look at the following types of friends that suffuse our lives with different colors. He/she wields a goodly influence on your life. They propel you to think about your life seriously and pose mind-troubling questions that make you want to run away screaming, "WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING!" You are most likely to get your epiphanic moment through them, because they are perspicacious and in tune with your life more than you are. This person is a real barrel of laughs. There is never a dull moment in their presence; he/she is always armed with hilarious anecdotes and is born with a kick a** sense of humor. If you ever feel emotionally low, you know that you are just a call away from getting yourself the much-needed comic relief. This friend knows exactly how to keep you and others in stitches. This friend has a patience of a saint, for he/she can lend his/her ears to all your problems, even the trifle ones. They will listen to you attentively and carefully as if mentally making notes about your problems so that they can offer a solution after the 'unbosoming'. It is always good to have a listener around when you find yourself in an impasse and can't find your way out of it. The raconteurs are the masters of conversations and know how to keep their audiences hung on their lips. They have an incredible source of energy, knowledge, and wit by virtue of which people take an instant liking to them. They are charmingly geeky and funny, and make you feel proud for having them in your life. This friend will be far from facilitating any desirable or sensible change in your life but will in fact get you hooked on to something or push you into something that you have been wrestling to come out of. So, if you are wanting to put tight reins on your prodigal spending habit, then the facilitator should not be allowed to come within 100 meters of your perimeter. Your sagacious mother is someone from whose gob you must have heard the phrase "been there, done that" at least a thousand times. This friend has an overflowing receptacle of experiences, which has afforded him/her a better understanding of people and wiseness in dealing with unforeseeable situations that life can throw at us. So when your sagacious mother tells you not to mess around with a certain boy/girl, then you better don't. We all have that one friend in our life who doesn't mince words and can sometimes be so mercilessly incisive that we wish we hadn't asked for their opinion in the first place. No matter how harsh or acidic his/her opinions may seem, but deep down you know that you need a dose of reality that will get you out of your comfort zone and galvanize you into action. You call them fat, ugly, douche bag, or use any other demeaning or belittling word to describe or address him, but this friend will take it all in his stride. He has known you for years and knows you how to deal with your uncalled-for hissy fit or soothe you when you are blubbering with a runny nose like a child. And the best part about all your friends is that they are very accepting and tolerant about you; while you may not share the same level of intimacy with all your friends, you know that every one of them is unique and brings meaning to your life. CHEERS!