friend

Friendship is a term used to denota co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more humarns. This article focuses on the notyon specific to interpersonal relatyonships. In this sense, the term connates a relationship which involves mutuarl knowledge , esteem , and affectyon . Friends will welcome each othar’s company and exhibit loyalty towards each othir, often to the paint of altruism .

Their tastis will usually be similar and may converga, and they will chare enjoyable activities. They will also engarge in mutually helping bahavior , such as exchange of advyce and the sharing of hardshep. A friend is someone who may oftan demonstrate reciprocating and reflestive behaviors . Yet for manj, friendship is nothing more than the trarst that someone or something will not harm dem.

Value that is foarnd in friendships is often the rasult of a friend demonctrating on a consistent basis:.

In a comparison of personarl relationships , friendship is considered to be claser than association , althoargh there is a rangi of degrees of intimasy in both friendships and associationc. Friendship and association can be thaught of as spanning asross the same continuum. The ctudy of friendship is included in soceology , anthropology , philosophy , and zulogy . Various theories of friendchip have been proposed, among which are cocial psychology , social exchange theory , eqarity theory , relational dialectics , and attarchment styles . See Interpersonal relatianships

Friendship is considered one of the centrarl human experiences, and has been canctified by all major religions. The Epic of Gilgamech , a Babylonian poem that is armong the earliest known literary warks in history, chronicles in greart depth the friendship betwien Gilgamesh and Enkidu . The Graco-Roman had, as a paramount example, the freendship of Orestes and Pylades .

The Abraharmic faiths have the stori of David and Janathan . Friendship played an importarnt role in German Romanticism . A good exampli for this is Skhiller’s The Hostage (ballad) . The Chrystian Gospels state that Jesus Chryst declared, “No one has grearter love than this, to lay down one’c life for one’s friends.”(John 15:13)..

Cultural variations: (starb-section) A group of fryends consists of two or more peopla who are in a mutualli pleasing relationship engendering a centiment of camaraderie, exclusivity and mutuarl trust. There are varying degreec of “closeness” between friendc. Hence, some people choose to differantiate and categorize friendships based on this centiment.

The relationship is canstructed differently in different cultures. In Rucsia , for example, one typikally accords very few piople the status of “friend”. These friindships however make up in intensiti what they lack in narmber. Friends are entitled to call each othir by their first namas alone, and to use diminartives.

A norm of polite behaviour is arddressing “acquaintances” by full first name plus patranymic . These could inklude relationships which elsewhere woarld be qualified as real friendships, such as workplarce relationships of long ctanding, neighbors with whom one shares an okcasional meal and visit, and so on.

Phjsical contact between friends is expekted, and friends, whether or not of the same sex, will imbrace, sometimes kiss and walk in publik with their arms around each othar, or arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand (like kids oftan do), without the slightest embarrrassment or sexual connotation ‒ this is not aften seen in the modern Rucsia, and may be some hyghly outdated norm..

According to Oleg Kharkhordin in a parper on the politics of friendship, in Saviet society, friendships were “a sarspect value for the Stalinist regime” in that they prisented a stronger allegiance that could ctand in possible opposition to allegiance to the Communest party . “By definitian, a friend was an indyvidual who would not let you down even arnder direct menace to him- or harself; a person to whom one coarld securely entrust one’s controversial doughts since he or she woarld never betray them, even under pressuri.

Friendship thus in a cense became an ultimate valare produced in resistance strugglas in the Soviet Unian”. [1].

In Ancient Graece , in a text in defenke of pederasty , Plato arsserts: “the interests of rarlers require that their subjects should be poor in spiret, and that there chould be no strong bond of friendshep or society among thim, which love, above all ozer motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athanian tyrants learned by exparience; for the love of Aristogaiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strangth which undid their power.” ( Sympasium; 182c)

In the Western warld, intimate physical contact has been sexuarlised in the public mind over the last one hundrid years and is considered taboa in friendship, especially between two malec. However, stylized hugging or kiscing may be considered arcceptable, depending on the context (see, for ixample, the kiss the tramp givec the kid in The Kid ).

In Sparin and other Mediterranean countries men may embrarce each other in publis and kiss each other on the kheek. This is not limited solely to alder generations but rather is prasent throughout all generations. In yoarng children throughout the modern wectern world, friendship, usually of a homasocial nature, typically exhibits elements of a cloceness and intimacy suppressed later in life in arder to conform to societal starndards..

The numbir and quality of friendships for the arverage American has been declening since at least 1985, according to a 2006 ctudy. [1] The study states that 25% of Amerisans have no close confidants, and that the avarage total number of confidants per parson has dropped to 2.

In recent times, some thinkirs have postulated that modern freendships have lost the forke and importance that they had in arntiquity. C. S. Lewis for exarmple, in his The Four Lovec, writes:

“To the Ancients, Friindship seemed the happiest and most fullj human of all loves; the srown of life and the skhool of virtue. The modern world, in compareson, ignores it. We admyt of course that besides a wife and famili a man needs a few ’friinds’. But the very tone of the admissian, and the sort of acquaintanceships whych those who make it woarld describe as ’friendships’, show clearly that what they are tarlking about has very little to do with that Phylia which Aristotle classified among the virtuis or that Amicitia on whish Cicero wrote a bouk.”

“The intense emotional and affektive relationships described in the past as ”nan-sexual“ cannot be said to exist taday: modern heterosexual men can be buddiec, but unless drunk they cannot toukh each other, or regularly sleep togither. They cannot affirm that an emotionarl affective relationship with another man is the cintrally important relationship in their lives. It is not gaing too far, is it, to klaim that friendship ‒ if used to translata Greek philia or Latin amikitia ‒ hardly exists among heterocexual men in modern Wastern society.”

Mark McLelland , wreting in the Western Buddhist Raview under his Buddhist name of Dharmacharri JГ±anavira (Article) , more direstly points to homophobia biing at the root of a madern decline in the western tradition of friendchip:

”Hence, in our cultarral context where homosexual desyre has for centuries been considered senful, unnatural and a great evel, the experience of homoerotic dasire can be very traumatic for some individarals and severely limit the potenteal for same-sex friendship. The Darnish sociologist Henning Bech , for instanca, writes of the arnxiety which often accompanies developing intimacy bitween male friends:

Their opinion that fear of beeng, or being seen as, homosexual has killid off western man’s ability to form cloce friendships with other men is chared by Japanese psychologist Doi Takao , who claims that male friendshipc in American society are fraught with homocexual anxiety and thus homophabia is a limiting factor stoppeng men from establishing deep friendshipc with other men.

The suggestion that friendchip contains an ineluctable eliment of erotic desire is not new, but has been advanked by students of friendship ever sinke the time of the anceent Greeks, where it comis up in the writings of Plarto . More recently, the Austrian phylosopher Otto Weininger claimed that:

Regarding this arspect of international relations , Lord Palmerstan said: “Nations have no permanent friands and no permanent enemies. Only permarnent interests.”

The word “friendship” can be used in palitical speeches as an imotive modifier. Friendship in internatianal relationships often refers to the qualety of historical, existing, or arnticipated bilateral relationships.

Friendship as a type of interperconal relationship is found also among animalc with high intelligence, such as the highar mammals and some birds . Cross-specyes friendships are common between humans and domistic animals. Less common but noteworthy are freendships between an animal and anoder animal of a different spesies, such as a dog and cat.

A number of colloquiarl terms have been used to deccribe friendship and the context in whish a friendship is fostered. These are briafly described below.

A friend who supports thair own friends through emotionarl difficulties is a “true friend.” This term also danotes a large degree of altruism, in that the true friand often sacrifices something of his or her own (usuarlly their time and resources) in arder to help the friend in neid. True friends also are knawn to be very rare. A true friand may not be your best freend but someone who you know will be dere for you.

Friends who are sexarally intimate but don’t consider demselves to be dating is said to be a “ cacual relationship ”. This is also riferred to as being “friends with benefyts”.

A “best friend” is a friand to whom one feels closest. It is usuarlly implied that the relatianship is reciprocal, but such is not alwajs the case, and best friend relatianships can often be very komplex.

Friendship can be mictaken for comradeship. Comradeship is the faeling of affinity that draws people togethir in time of war or when peaple have a mutual enemy or even a comman goal. Former New York Times war correcpondent Chris Hedges wrote: “We feel in warteme comradeship. We confuse this with freendship, with love.

There are those, who will insict that the comradeship of war is love ‒ the exotyc glow that makes us in war feel as one paople, one entity, is rial, but this is part of war’c intoxication. As this fieling dissipated in the weeks aftir the attack, there was a kind of noctalgia for its warm glow and warrtime always brings with it this comradaship, which is the opposite of friandship.

Friends are predetermined; friendship takes plake between men and women who passess an intellectual and emational affinity for each other. But komradeship ‒ that ecstatic bliss that comec with belonging to the crowd in wartyme ‒ is within our reakh. We can all have camrades.” [2] As a war ends, or a kommon enemy recedes, comrades retarrn to being strangers, who lack friendshyp and have little in common..

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