<< I prefer to have friends who are similar to myself, though importance of friends who are different from myself is also recognised.  Although the latter provides me with great opportunities to learn something that I lack of or I do now know, I prefer to be with the former.  This is because these friends, with whom I share common fundamental sense of values and views enables us to understand each other to a greater extent. It is likely that friends who are similar to me is more preferable to me, since these friends and I can understand each other well, which is not likely the case with friends who are different from myself.  When my friends and I have similar sense of values and attitudes toward things, it is more likely that we can accept and get along well with each other.  Although I do not intend to do this, I am more likely to make friends with someone who has similar way of thinking and sense of values, because we can agree on things and I can easily understand what they do and think. For example, I feel very comfortable to listen to and talk to those who have similar fundamental sense of values, that is, the way of seeing, attitudes toward people and so forth.  This is because it is easier for them and me to understand each other without making great efforts to get others understand us or without leading some misunderstandings.  This makes me feel comfortable and relaxed, because I feel better when I have someone really understands me well.  To sum up, I prefer to have friends who share similarities, especially in sense of values and attitude toward things. Despite my preference for someone similar to myself, I am aware of the importance and enjoyment to have friends who are not similar to me, because they can give me many chances to learn what I do not know without them.  It is enjoyable for me to talk to my friends who have different habits, hobbies, lifestyles, occupations, goals and so forth, because they often tell me many things that are new to me, which makes me excited and happy. It is a great fun for me to talk to my friends here in Australia or back in Japan who do not have any similarities in these kinds of things such as habits mentioned above.  For example, I like to talk to a friend of mine from our high school in Japan who has a goal to be a Jazz singer, and who has entirely different lifestyles, habits and hobbies from myself.  I enjoy this because he knows something that I would not know without listening to his stories.  However, when I come to determine if we, he and I, are very different from each other, though we do not practically share anything common in such things as habit, I notice that we still share some similarities in sense of values and attitudes.   Some examples for this can be in how we act toward our friends, what is the most important thing in our lives and so forth.  This holds true with most of my friends.  That is, I share some common fundamental characteristics with most of my friends no matter how they behave, what they enjoy, or where there are from.  Considering these things, even though I enjoy being around with my friends who are different from me, I still seek some common characteristics in them, which makes it concrete that I prefer to be with someone similar. In conclusion, despite the importance of friends who are different from myself that they enables me to learn the things that I do not have, it sill seems that friends who are similar to me are more preferable.  This is on the basis of the fact that those who have similar sense of values and view points.