Real friends are getting harder and harder to find. Everyone has their own vision of what characteristics they look for in a friend. My ideal friend would have to be someone who stands by me through all the good and bad decisions I make, and always be there to support me. In the story The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the two main characters, Amir and Hassan, show you that being a terrible friend is never good; being a too good a friend is also bad.

When I was little, my mom always told me that people are going to do a lot of bad, but I have to appreciate the people who do the most good for me. Up until about 3 years ago, I never really understood what it meant to have a decent friend. My ideal friend, who is also my best friend, is someone I can run to when I need help; she always supports my decisions, and she will always have my back. She’s always been there for me when my family was having problems, and back when I had no one else to turn to. My mom always told me that if someone can make you laugh when you’re about to cry, they’re a friend worth keeping.

When looking up the word friend in the dictionary, it said a friend is someone who is on good terms with another person. I disagree with this statement; I think a friend is way more than just being on good terms with another individual. In the story The Kite Runner, Amir is not an ideal friend for Hassan; Hassan has sacrificed everything for Amir, regardless of what Amir has done. “If I had a chance to make a decision…..Or I could run. I ran” (page 77). This quote in the story explains that Amir stood there and watched Hassan get raped and didn’t stand up for him. Later on in the chapter, Amir is thinking to himself and it says, “I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world. Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba” (page 140). The book shows that Hassan is too good of a friend to Amir, and he shouldn’t have to sacrifice himself for his friend. The book is saying when you’re too good of a friend, you’ll be taken advantage of. Hassan was taken advantage of by Amir in the following ways: he was raped by Assef to get the kite for Amir, he had to lie to Baba and tell him he stole money that Amir planted in his room, and he also was killed later on because he didn’t get to go to America with Amir and Baba. The book is also saying that when you have a good friend, you’ll take advantage of them. I don’t agree with this because not everyone will take advantage of true friends; real friends don’t let you be too good of a friend, and they wouldn’t let you take the fall for everything.

Having standards for your friends is not bad, and I believe that everyone should have an ideal friend. After reading this story and talking to my mother, I’m going to try my hardest to be the ideal friend. I know that people aren’t always perfect, but Amir ended up redeeming himself at the end of the story by saving Hassan’s little boy. I believe that if you’re trying to make some sort of effort into bettering our friendship, then you are an ideal friend.