Jacob Fields

Ashley Marcum
Eng 111
FJT77
10/21/15
Do You Have A True Friend?
Did you know that it is proven that you can live 22% longer with a large
network of friends than someone with just a few amount of friends? Friendship is
defined diversely throughout our society today as it displayed in several ways .
Communication, acceptance, common interests, and positive motivation between
the two friends are what make up the fundamentals of the relationship between
Katz and Bryson throughout their journey in the book : A Walk in the Woods, and
in modern day America friendships between two companions .
Many problems with todays friendship in modern America are that there is
no true communication between two human beings at all. There are statistics out
there that show that the average Face book user has one hundred and thirty
friends on their account (Akst 2010). As busy as Americans are today we know
that nobody truly has time to sit down with one hundred and thirty people and
have meaningful conversation or bonding. Daniel Akst in the article America:
Land of the Loners states Americans plugged in and on the move, are confiding
in their pets, their computers, and their spouses. (Akst 2010). What he means
by this is simply Americans would rather sit alone behind their computer screen

or with their pet and spend their time doing that rather than getting out and
exploring the social aspects of the world with others.
In the book A Walk in the Woods, Bryson and Katz are constantly having
conversation and one on one time, which builds their relationship. An example
would be In our few private moments when Mary Ellen went off to tinkle in the
distant shrubs, Katz and I formed a secret pact that we would walk fourteen
mile (Bryson 85). This shows how a relationship can build through
communication, since the two had already verbally and non-verbally expressed
their feeling of Mary Ellen they knew that they both wanted to leave her in the
dust. Communication is key to any friendship because most of all you will never
know what others are like without spending time communicating with them.
Another major part of a friendship and what we as people look for in a
friendship is acceptance. John J. Conley said we are free to love each other
neither as instruments of self-aggrandizement nor as objects of sexual desire but
simply for own sakes as rational but fragile creatures in need of encouragement
(Conley 32). This basically says you want to be accepted for the person you are
and the personality that you have and by doing this your self confidence will be
boosted. If you do not feel accepted by someone or you feel you have to change
for him or her you are not going to have a real comfortable or successful
relationship.
Bryson was very accepting of Katz joining him on his adventure through
the Appalachian Mountains he even said, Thats the spirit, I thought. Good old
Katz. Good old anybody with a pulse and a willingness to go walking with me.

(Bryson 29). Bryson was willing to accept anybody, no matter what type of
person, to join him on this long journey, which shows that Bryson is a really good
friend. If Bryson would not have been so accepting of Katz even in Katz state of
physical fitness he may have had to walk the trail alone and they would have
never been able to spend the bonding time to rebuild their friendship.
Most friendships today are based on the concept of two or more persons
having common interests whether it is in sports, politics, hobbies, or even your
career. Think about all the friends that you have and all the things that you do
together, you do these together because most likely you both love the activity
and that is what introduced the two of you or brought you closer. Some hold that
it is a matter of similarity: that our friends are those who are like
ourselves(Doyle & Smith 2002). What is being said here is that you look for
people that are similar to you and most of the time you find yourself saying
What? You too? I thought I was the only one(Doyle & Smith 2002) When you
find somebody that has the same interests as you the both of you already have
something that bond the both of you together to begin a friendship. It is a
common saying that friends who play together stay together, and I believe that
this is very true.
When Katz first called Bryson his question was But this Appalachian Trail
do you think maybe I could come with you? (Katz 28). When Bryson heard
this he knew that Katz and himself shared a common interest of hiking thus
gruesome trial together, after all they had been on many hikes and had spent

time doing other activities they liked with each other so they knew they were both
similar.
One other criteria of having a good successful friendship with someone is
for them to be a positive motivation towards you and you push them in a positive
direction also. You do not want a friend that is constantly bringing up all the
negative things that are going wrong or that you are doing wrong. You want
somebody that pushes you to be a better person that motivates you to do well in
life and achieve things that you may not be able to do alone. Bryson had to really
motivate Katz at the beginning of the trip to get him started Katz wanted to stay
an extra night in the motel before they started but Bryson persisted and
convinced Katz they would be best off going ahead (Bryson 49). If Katz did not
have Bryson there with him he would have stayed at the hotel and never even
started at his goal of walking the Appalachian Trail hr would have never got any
of the experience and bonding the two of them gained together.
Overall in a perfect reality a true friendship would excel in all these
catagories to promote the most successful and meaningful friendship. If you
have any of these traits or fall into any of these catigories you can be a good
friend to someone out there do not think that you can not have any friends, there
is always somebody out there that feels the same as you. Although all of these
criteria may not be met you can always strive to make yourself a better friend to
somebody who needs you to be there for them. If everyone in the world even just
in America would start becoming more friendly the world could be made a much

better place and people could enjoy activities and go on adventures just as
Bryson and Katz did in the book: A Walk in the Woods.