Friendship

Coming to the special relationship I was talking about. I have to go back to your previous letter in which you asked me if you could call the feeling "friendship".
If you go by the definition or norm set by society then we have very little chance to have friendship. One reason being our "friendship" isn't clearly defined. This got me thinking. "If this is not friendship according to me, then what is it? Can I call it love?"
Allow me to explain.
See "friendship" is a bond, a relationship, between two friends. As long as they are friends, friendship exists. But if they cease to be the friends they were or if they are not the definitive "friends", then what do you call their relationship if they still have a certain feeling for each other?
Now take love.
Does one need to know a person really well to love him/her? Does love need certain set conditions or for the persons to be in a particular state? Is love restricted only to a friend? Does love cease to exist even if they haven't had contact for a long time?
Why has the world made mockery of such a beautiful word called love, by defining it as a feeling for a person you 'desire' to be with?
Love is an eternal and all-encompassing feeling, free of the trappings of the mind.
Why then, shall we take away the beauty of the relationship we share by not calling it love?
Over the years the meaning of "friendship" has just dwindled away from my life.
Perhaps I started disliking the word "friendship" when people started misusing the relationship. I felt cheated because I always felt that it is what love between two friends is called.
Then I questioned my own definition of a friend. I realised that all the people I termed as friends were merely acquaintances whom I liked more. But the real people who have been with me through my ups and downs, I have hesitated to call them a friend for want of a word higher and deeper than "friend".
That's why I ask some people not to call me a friend. That cuts short all that we could share. Because when you mention the word "friend", there are certain boundaries, albeit not clearly defined, within which one has to maintain oneself.
Why not do away with that and be just two human beings, sharing a natural feeling of bonding?