Best Friend and Archenemy

Best Friend and Archenemy

Introduction

Man is a social animal by nature, and he cannot live without making relations and having acquaintances. The relations are of different types some are strong, while others are weak. Some are important while other do not hold that much significance. Some are deep while others are superficial and the people involved in these relations are treated accordingly.

One of the most essential and important relation in that of best friend—a person who is close to you, whom you can share everything with, who is always ready to listen to your issues and problems and to provide you with a shoulder to cry on, whenever you need one. The relation has all the positive and innocent connotations attached to it, while the archenemy is just the opposite. It has all the negative associations: mean, cruel, not worth being talked to and so on. However, the two seemingly opposite and relations are, in fact, very much similar to each other and have a number of common aspects. The following paragraphs analyze the essential similarities between the two:

Discussion

The best friend is the most important person in one's life and sometimes even more close than the family members. It has often been observed that people share all the small and big events of their life, with their best friends while they might not do so with their family members. On the other hand, the archenemy also holds utmost importance, though people might not realize it, but they are also giving much time to the archenemy, thinking about him and observing him. It is a natural phenomenon that one is as much interested in his enemies as he is in his friends, and so people grant equal time thinking about their friends as they do the thinking about the enemies (Tonkiss, 2006).

Moreover, as one is concerned about the whereabouts of best friend, he is equally concerned about the whereabouts of archenemy too. The reasons might be different, as people care for their best friend and concern about archenemy is just for the sake of information, but the fact remains that it is present in both cases and is there with an equal extent.

Best friend is the person one often talks about, and discusses with others and same go for archenemy. For instance, if a person is present at a gathering and talking about his best friend, he is sure to discuss the archenemy as well, though tone and purpose of discussion might be different. This means that equal time is allotted to both, the best friend and the archenemy when it comes to discussing people, and both of them are equally highlighted.

The striking similarity is also observed when some good or adverse event occurs—one immediately thinks about his best friend and his archenemy at the same time. The best friend is remembered in order to share the good or unwelcome news, and the archenemy is remembered for other reasons, but both come to mind at the same times, when some decisive event takes place...