EBTB #2: The 7 types of friends we all need

Hi and welcome to the podcast that will help you learn English. Yes, we’re sure about that. We love having fun, and we have a ton of fun making these podcasts just for you. 

My name’s Rohit and I’d like to welcome you to our second episode of English before going to bed with Rohit, brought to you by GoGetter English. As you know the main aim of our podcast will be just to do whatever, whatever, no matter what is in our hand to help you learn English, once and for all. We’re determined and we will do it.

We won’t just TEACH English in the most fun way, no, we’ll help you overcome those barriers that you yourself have put up and we’ll also try to help you discover how you can learn English in a way that is comfortable and at the same time suitable to you. Learning anything takes time and effort, and although this podcast might help you, it is only you, your time and your effort the ones you will have to invest to improving your English

So, if you’d let us, we’d love to show you how you can maximize your time while learning English. So it’s my pleasure to Welcome you to another episode of English before going to bed, brought to you by GoGetter English.

I’ll be your host, my name’s Rohit and the first thing I want to do is tell you a little story that inspired this podcast, today we’ll be talking about the type of friends we all have, but Stay tuned, because you might find this little story I have to tell you relatable. A couple of months back, maybe three, my wife and I decided to watch what I think we had put off for way too long and that was the Queen slash Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. You can say that I’ve always been interested in music, well, actually, addicted to music since I was 3 years old. And of course, just like any other person who loves music, Queen is in my top 5 list of best bands ever. So, although it took me a while to finally watch the movie, I was determined to enjoy every bit of it, even though I was almost certain I knew, if not all, most of the stories the movie might have included. In any case, it was a movie about one of the music greats and I wanted to watch it. 

So, we went ahead and started watching it. It’s also important to note that I tend to have a really good memory when it comes to remembering really useless stuff. Like fun facts or ridiculous dates and that sort of thing. And however, this memory of mine also helps me remember the people who like a particular band or type of music. Some day we’ll talk about how I like classifying personality types. In any case, while watching the movie I remembered some of my friends from my school times (back in 1994) who loved Queen. 

I liked Queen, these friends of mine, loved them. So, I couldn’t help it and started remembering those times I spent, especially with one of my friends, listening to Queen after school, and learning the words to their songs by heart. 

I couldn’t help but get very emotional while watching the whole movie, because every song reminded me of a different situation I had spent with my friends. And this friend in particular.

I hadn’t seen this friend in the last 15 years. In fact the last time I saw him was at my wedding. Exactly 15 years ago. Maybe a text message or two might have gone back and forth in those 15 years. Anyways going back to the story. After I dried up my tears once the movie was over, I picked up my phone and Whatsapped (that’s a verb today, right?) my friend after, god knows how long and I wrote. “David, I’ve just finished watching Bohemian Rhapsody and the only person I could think about the whole time while watching it was you, and all those evenings we spent enjoying good music. I thought you should know. A big hug my friend, hope all is well”. To my surprise he replied immediately after almost 15 years and we made plans to meet soon. Youuuu knowww, the typical, we should catch up, we need to have lunch or dinner soon, yada yada yada. 

And of course, this got me thinking about the kind of relationships I had with my friends. How I like to keep the connection with the people I consider my friends. And so since I love making lists, lists help me organise things, you will surely see more of that in future podcasts.

So, Like the saying goes, «You can’t choose your family.» With family, the relationships are there whether you like them or not. But friendship, friendship is different. Your friends are people YOU select based on shared values, on your ideals, experiences, interests and beliefs. Your friends ARE your chosen family.

It’s important to have friends who represent the different stages of your life and the paths that you’ve taken. It’s important to surround yourself with friends who know the whole you; a work friend may not know the same you as a friend from college. When you maintain friendships from different stages of your life, you’re able to express more of your real self, isn’t it?

You need different types of friends in the same way that you need food from different food groups. Different types of friends help you nourish and enrich your life in different ways.

And Here are the seven different types of friend you need and we probably all have:

1. The friend who’s up for anything.

This is the friend you can call any time of day or night and ask him or her to either have a drink, a coffee, anything. Ready to spend some time with you. These are friends you’ll need always. There’s a wonderful poster I found one day that read: “Good friends will talk you out of doing silly things, Great friends will tell you ‘when and where are we doing this?”

Next in line is

2. The friend who’s just a little bit cooler than you.

This friend encourages you to step outside of your comfort zone and opens your eyes to things you might not normally see. They are the ones who push you to your full potential and usually by using taunting phrases such as, ‘You have no guts to do this or that’

3. The friend you want to be like

This friend is inspirational as well as aspirational. When you’re with them, you feel like you are a better person. You admire them and they encourage you to be the best you can be. It’s like having your own personal coach.

4. The funny one

There’s always a friend that with their charm, intelligence, and endless sarchasm ready to brighten up your day with their hilarious sense of humour. No matter what the situation might be they just make you laugh until you even pee a little. Those are great friends to have. There’s nothing more uplifting than someone making the effort to make you laugh.

5. The one who’s brutally honest

This friend doesn’t care what might be politically correct or not, he or she will tell you the truth without sugar-coating any bit. Being told what you need to be told is just what we sometimes need to make better decisions. 

6. The one who’s always looking on the bright side of life

Yes, these are the ones that don’t want to or can’t see the drama or sad things about life. They tend to always find the good side of things and people, even you, they only see the best side of you. A delight to have. 

and the last one:

7. The friend you’ve known longer than you’ve actually known yourself. 

These are the friends that appeared in your life at some point and never left. They were always there, those are the ones that even if a few years go by without any contact it seems that nothing had changed, you just pick the conversation where you left off. There’s nothing better than that. Even if life forced you on a different path, it takes very little effort to reconnect and chat about things as if nothing had happened.

Throughout my life I’ve met incredible people and made incredible friends, all over the world and the two things I’ve realized is that, it takes very little effort to talk to someone again when they’ve been a relevant part of your life and two that it’s never late to check in on how someone is doing. Just one line, “Hey I thought about you, just wrote to say hi” You never know when you might make someone’s day. Trust me, it works.

And going back to my story, if you were wondering whether I met up with my childhood friend, yes we did, and we spent the most delightful time together catching up with the most mundane things that make up our everyday life after 15 years. There’s a picture to prove it. You can visit our blog and you’ll find tons more related to our podcast besides the picture, you’ll find the transcript and the most relevant vocabulary of today’s podcast, a podcast that proves that friends are the people we need to be the best of us. 

Thanks so much for listening and we hope you enjoyed today’s podcast. If you want to receive this podcast in your email, don’t forget to subscribe, and you will receive our podcast every Friday with some great extras like the transcript of the podcast and some really useful things from our weekly episode. I’m your host, Rohit and I hope to catch you in our next podcast. The GoGetter Team says SEEYA and don’t forget #beagogetter.

To put something off
Posponer algo.

Relatable
Con lo que te puedes sentir identificado.
Ideal para describir historias, situaciones o personas.

To catch up
Ponerse al día (con alguien).
Expresión clave para hablar de reencontrarse con amigos.

To step outside your comfort zone
Salir de tu zona de confort.
Muy frecuente en contextos de crecimiento personal y motivación.

Brutally honest
Brutalmente honesto / muy directo.
Excelente collocation para describir tipos de personalidad.

To sugar-coat (something)
Endulzar la realidad / suavizar la verdad.
Se usa mucho en contraste con “being honest”.