Since I left high school, I've seen and experienced my fair share of friendships. More than that, however, I've these several friendships come into being from first interactions, a mere sprout with the potential of something pleasant and special. However, while many of these friendships have flourished beautifully, others, unfortunately, have withered away and died.

Naturally, it begs the question of what a friendship is. Why do some people bond and mesh so well that they could not even fathom fighting, while others vanish through ghosting, and others crack or explode from arguments. Most importantly: what makes for a good friendship?

In my opinion, a friendship has several extremely important foundations. The first, a shared interest, can be the reason the friendship ever begins with a minute spark. In college or a workplace, for example, it's not uncommon that people bond over shared experience. A song could come on over the radio, and both parties would gush about how much they love the band or singer, for example.

However, a shared interest can only take a friendship so far. Odds are that one friend will not like all of the same things as the other. In fact, I would dare to argue that diversity is all for the better. While a shared like could attract the same types of people, without differences to add into the mix, it might so happen that the friendship will grow monotonous from the same components - after all, a pair can only talk about the same band for so long before every conversation is redundant.

Trust and respect, in my opinion, are the true builders of a friendship that will cultivate growth into a meaningful friendship. Both trust and respect ensure that the friends in question are comfortable with one another, and are able to share what is on their chest. Trust that they could say anything from how their day has been, to vent about the boy who broke their heart, without fear of rejection.

In order to ensure the trust, respect must also be present. Personally, I trust that my friends will tell me when something is happening or that something is wrong in the friendship so that it can be dealt with accordingly. Recently, I have seen friendships fall apart because friends lack the ability to communicate because there is a startlingly low level of respect. Perhaps if friendships contained respect, then there would be a decrease in passive-aggressive comments that lead to miscommunication and argument.

Of course, each friendship is unique from one another, and I doubt that there is a recipe that will work for every grouping of individuals, because each person is unique and is looking for something in each interpersonal relationship they have. But this is not to say shared interest, trust, and respect between people is not a proper start for building a maintaining a healthy friendship. Without it, I doubt that the relationship will end well.