Answer the following questions about yourself, your friends and your ideas about friendship

1. Do you like to give advice to your friends or ask them for advice?

2. Have you ever let down your friends or felt that they had let you down? Can you forgive this? Have you been forgiven?

3. What do you think of this ancient saying “Socrates is my friend but the truth is dearer to me.”?

4. If your friend doesn’t support you in an argument, are you offended or respect his/her opinion?

5. Have you ever let out a secret your friend entrusted you with? How did you feel after that? Has the opposite happened in your relations with your friends?

6. Usually there is a leading and a supporting partner in a friendship. Two leaders very seldom get on well together. In your relationship with your friend which partner are you? If you are a leader, are you always considerate about your friend`s feelings? If you are a supporting partner, do you try to suit yourself to the demand of the leader?

7. Have you ever asked your friend to lie for you in an awkward situation? What was his/her reaction?

8. What do you appreciate most of all in your friend(s)?

Read two letters to a youth magazine and express your opinion about them. What advice could you give to these people?

a. “My friend has strict parents who do not like him going out to the disco. He wants me to lie for him by telling his mum that he is at my house. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want to let him down either. What can I do? I want to help but do you think he is pushing things too far?”

b. “There has been a series of thefts of property and money in our group, and various things seem to have disappeared. The police have been called in, they were looking into the problem but so far nobody has been punished. The other day I called on my best friend. He was out and his mother asked me to wait in his room. As I was waiting for him to turn up, I started looking around and suddenly came across a couple of things stolen a week before. I went hot and cold. I didn’t know what to do, and when my friend finally came I said nothing. I don’t want to lose my friend or to break up his family – he already has enough trouble with his dad. On the other hand, theft is a serious crime. If I turn the blind eye, I will be letting down my other group mates. What shall I do?”