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A friend of mine never forgets to boast of his extensive vocabulary.  He used to say, if words were money, He would be a millionaire. But I would call him poor, since, despite having a good vocabulary, he would never use the words ‘Sorry’ and ‘Thank you’.

Friendship and the definitions of friendship have evolved with time. .

Some of my friends remark that I sometimes behave very formal when I’m with them. And they come to that conclusion because I keep saying ‘Sorry’ and ‘Thank You’. I tell them that I value my friendship and I take care to see to it that I don’t take anything for granted at any point and I’m just making it known to them as well. I take extra care even in small things because I want to make sure I’m not hurting anyone inadvertently. Since its always small things done in haste that makes a lot of difference and leads to a lot of misunderstandings. I’d rather be cautious than to be at loggerheads for some trivial, insignificant stuff. That extra bit of caution they say is formal, I’m Sorry. I can’t help it.

I seriously do not comprehend the logic behind people saying “No Sorry or Thank you among friends”. Ok, So who else are you going to say it to? Your Enemies? Seriously? It is understandable that in friendship, the small things that may instigate bigger spats can always be overlooked. Hence friends do not like or rather prefer it, if their friends refrain from saying sorry or thank you. But my question is, they are our friends, Next to our family, or even on par with our family, Shouldn’t we treat them better? Don’t they deserve a thank you for all that they’ve been doing? Don’t they deserve a word of Sorry for all the times we irritated them? Or are we taking them for granted?

For a minute, let’s just get back to the basics. Two questions. Why Sorry? Why Thank You?

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People say Sorry when they are deeply disturbed with something which should have never happened in the first place. Well generally that’s what people do. We say sorry when we feel we’ve hurt someone or caused them pain without intending to. We say sorry because we get scared that our actions might have hurt the sentiments of our friend and we apologize for having caused them pain. It might be just one word, but it conveys a lot of thoughts.

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We Thank others either for taking their time off to tell us something or do us a favour. We say Thank you, because we appreciate the efforts of someone takes for us and as a token of our appreciation we thank them. We say “Thank you “because we value their time and presence. We say Thank you because despite their numerous commitments they always manage to find time for us, and it is just a simple way of letting them know that we value that and not take it for granted.

Now back again to our friends. Why shouldn’t we let them know that we’re happy they are spending time with us? Why shouldn’t we let them know how we feel after that bitter spat? Why is this considered formal? After all they are the ones who are an integral part of our lives. They are the ones who would always stand by us. They are the ones who would never think twice to come to our rescue. When you say Sorry to a stranger for stepping on their foot and When you say “Thank You” to a stranger for picking up our bags, why shouldn’t we say Sorry and Thank you to those who mean a lot to us? Is it that big a deal?

What good would it do, if you knew a thousand meaningless words, and you do not know the value of two words uttered earnestly by a sincere soul?