Friendship is a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for many, friendship is nothing more than the trust that someone or something will not harm them.

Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating on a consistent basis:

the tendency to desire what is best for each other.
sympathy and empathy.
honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth.
mutual understanding.

It is often considered that a true friend is capable of deep feelings, which may be unexpressible, except in times of great trouble, when they come to one's aid.

In a comparison of personal relationships, friendship is considered to be closer than acquaintanceship, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and acquaintances. For many people, friendship and acquaintanceship lie along the same continuum.

The principal disciplines studying friendship are sociology, anthropology and zoology. Various theories of friendship have been proposed, among which are social psychology, social exchange theory, equity theory, relational dialectics, and attachment styles.

Two girls Friendship between two girls

Etymology

The English word is of Germanic origin, and related to the Old English fréond with the same meaning, and the Old Teutonic frijôjan, to love.

History

Friendship is considered one of the central human experiences, and has been sanctified by all major religions. The Greco-Roman had, as a paramount example, the friendship of Orestes and Pylades. The Abrahamic faiths have the story of David and Jonathan. The Christian Gospels state that Jesus Christ declared, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."

In philosophy, Aristotle is perhaps best known for his discussion (in the Nicomachean Ethics) of philia, which is usually (somewhat misleadingly) translated as "friendship", and certainly included friendship, though is a much broader concept.

Physical manifestations

Friends usually will engage in various forms of physical contact, at times spontaneous and other times of a ritualized nature. This is often used as an outward symbol of their friendship.

The form and context of the physical contact has varied historically, culturally, and developmentally. In the West, these manifestations, with the exception of the more formal ones, can be seen with greater frequency among young children and among female friends. In the East they are more equally distributed.

Types

  • Handshakes. This is a more formalized type of contact, frequent among older individuals and only denoting feelings of friendship if emphasized.
  • Holding hands
  • High five
  • Hugging
    • Two-armed hug
    • Pound hug This embrace, primarily used by young males, has become popular among Western subgroups because it expresses affection while maintaining a remote posture, so as to preclude any homosexual connotations[1].
  • Walking arm-in-arm
  • Placing an arm over the other's shoulder or waist
  • Kissing
  • Eskimo kissing
  • Imitation of fight

Developmental issues

In the sequence of the emotional development of the individual, friendships come after parental bonding and before the pair bonding engaged in at the approach of maturity. In the intervening period between the end of early childhood and the onset of full adulthood, friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotional life of the adolescent, and are often more intense than relationships later in life. These friendships are most often with one's age and sex peers, though equally intense bonds can form with older or younger individuals.

Types of friendship

  • Romantic friendship
    Pen pal
    Internet friendship
    Intimate relationship
    Love
    Platonic love
    Romantic love

Non-personal friendships

Although the term initially described relations between individuals, it is at times used for political purposes to describe relations between states or peoples ("the Franco-German friendship," for example), indicating in this case an affinity or mutuality of purpose between the two nations.

Regarding this aspect of international relations, Lord Palmerston said: "Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests."

Interspecies friendship and animal friendship

Friendship as a type of interpersonal relationship is found also among animals with rich intelligence, such as the higher mammals and some birds. Cross-species friendships are common between humans and domestic animals. Less common but still of note are friendships between an animal and another animal of a different species, such as a dog and cat.

Colloquial nomenclature

A number of colloquial terms have been used to describe friendship and the context in which a friendship is fostered. These are briefly described below.

  • A friend who supports others only when it is easy and convenient to do so is called a "fair-weather friend".
  • A friend who sticks by you through thick and thin is a "true friend".
  • A friend with whom you are sexually intimate but don't consider yourself to be dating is said to be a "casual relationship". This is also referred to as being "friends with benefits".

Friendship contrasted with comradeship

Friendship can be mistaken for comradeship. Comradeship is the feeling of affinity that draws people together in time of war or when people have a mutual enemy or even a common goal. Former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges wrote: "We feel in wartime comradeship. We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those, who will insist that the comradeship of war is love — the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication. As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship – that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime – is within our reach. We can all have comrades." [3] As a war ends, or a common enemy recedes, comrades return to being strangers, who lack friendship and have little in common.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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