Love and friendship

 　　Both are so much related to each other. And both are so dissimilar! What are the differences between friendship and love? Is platonic¹ friendship possible between persons of opposite sex? Let us try and understand.

　　What is friendship? Why do we call a person our friend? When do we call someone a very good friend? If we care for a person, if we are always ready to help that person and if we share most of our thoughts with a person, they are our good friends. We can always count upon our good friends in an emergency. We are always sure that our friend will understand why we acted in a certain way. We need not explain anything to our very good friends. The friendship is so deep and the relationship is so intimate, that most of the things are automatically understood by our friends.

　　What about love? In a relationship of deep love, all the sharing that we discussed above are taken for granted. But love transcends² all this. During love, we are attached with a particular person, while in friendship, one may have many friends. A loving relationship makes one so much attached to the other, that one gets pained if his/her beloved is hurt! Love also involves a physical element. Friendship does not have that. This is a vital difference. Nature gives us love so that the specie can go forward. Nature does not give us friendship.

　　Your heart beats will never increase in anticipation³ of meeting your friend. You will not lie awake at night thinking about your friend. You will not feel totally lost, if you don't meet your friend for a few days. You will not have dreams in your eyes thinking about your friend. But in love, you will do all this and much more. Indeed, there is no comparison between love and friendship.

1 platonic   

adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的

参考例句：

• Their friendship is based on platonic love.他们的友情是基于柏拉图式的爱情。
• Can Platonic love really exist in real life?柏拉图式的爱情，在现实世界里到底可能吗？

2 transcends   

超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的第三人称单数 )； 优于或胜过…

参考例句：

• The chemical dilution technique transcends most of the difficulties. 化学稀释法能克服大部分困难。
• The genius of Shakespeare transcends that of all other English poets. 莎士比亚的才华胜过所有的其他英国诗人。

3 anticipation   

n.预期，预料，期望

参考例句：

• We waited at the station in anticipation of her arrival.我们在车站等着，期待她的到来。
• The animals grew restless as if in anticipation of an earthquake.各种动物都变得焦躁不安，像是感到了地震即将发生。