I am in the suitable mood to write about things that I like. I have talked about friends and their types and characteristics from my point of view in the previous letter. In this letter I shall describe another type of friends that means a lot to me, Pen pals!

It is the last day of September in the 2013 year. Computing technology is at the peak. Unstoppable revolution is changing the previous concepts about Globalization. Telecommunications through the net is turning from a first world matter to worldwide property. I mean you may find an uneducated native from the forgotten tribes of Amazonia chatting via Facebook with a huntsman from the jungles of Africa! What a nice scene would it be hhh.

   Since I created an account on Facebook and other social networks like Interpals, I made a wide list of “friends” or let’s call them Pen pals. Some of them were from other countries, and they were my favorite ones because they would enable me to discover their cultures and mentalities which are strange to me. Yet my countrymen’s reputation on the social networks was not so good and respected, simply because being an Algerian man chatting on net means that you are looking for love, travelling abroad , marrying and getting green cards hhh. This could be true to some extent, consequently, I was not so successful with females, concerning men… for the God’s sake who wants to talk to a man hhh!

  Since my childhood, I grew up in a very intimate village. We were a small clan inside another big one. There were no racist behaviors that would bother my tiny clan’s families. This climate helped me to shape a beautiful web of friends. Most of them were playmates, classmates and neighbors. My childhood was full of games and playing. I remember that I had adventurous games in the neighboring valley. Like every boy who grows up in the countryside, I lived among animals and cattle of goats, sheep, cows and donkeys. I had been chased by fierce dogs more than one time hhh but I could escape safely. My most fears were because of dogs … now as a grow up man, dogs for me are so normal just like a cat or sheep!

       My friends are so important for me, Although, I feel that I am that type of men who can endure loneliness for long times, or even prefer it sometimes! Each period of time offers us new friends. In Each stage, we get new friends and loose old ones. We lose the ones that were our mutual during the middle school, to be with others of high school, then we lose the latters when we move to university. So it is a long chain of changes that may affect us negatively or positively. Because it is the period when we are far away from our families, and the time that we have to depend much more on ourselves, Still the friends that we get during the four or five years of university the best ones. During my college, I knew good people that I still in contact with some of them, and others became among the best friends I have. The term friend is ambiguous somehow. I think it needs some clarification. As I have mentioned, during different stages of our life we meet many people whom we spent nice moments with. But are all those persons could be called “friends”!? a real friend is the one whom we can be with for all life, not only for a “short time”. A real friend is the one who

would listen to your complaints carefully then support with you at least with advice. A real friend is the one who would not forget you even if you are separated or away from each other. Who would phone or message you to assure that you are ok. The relation between friends is based on care, sharing happiness as well as sadness. Friends would exert no effort to help and support each other mentally or financially. Hatred, envy, or tight counts have no places among real friends. Friends are more like brothers. Confidence is so strong between them. When you have trouble be sure that a real friend would back you like your brother will do! And when you have a joy be sure that you would see happiness in the eyes of your friend as you would feel it in yours. I believe that this is the right definition of friendship. The rest of people can be classified as colleagues, classmates, playmates, neighbors, relatives …. Etc. The close ones can be added by the adjective “ special …”.