What is the meaning of friendship?

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Friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more people. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. 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 the following on a consistent basis:

the tendency to desire what is best for the other,
sympathy and empathy,
honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one's counterpart,
mutual understanding.
In a comparison of personal relationships, friendship is considered to be closer than association, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and associations. Friendship and association can be thought of as spanning across the same continuum. The study of friendship is included in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and zoology. Various theories of friendship have been proposed, among which are social psychology, social exchange theory, equity theory, relational dialectics, and attachment styles. See Interpersonal relationships


[edit] Types of friendships
Best friend (or close friend): a person(s) with whom someone shares extremely strong interpersonal ties with as a friend.


Acquaintance: a friend, but sharing of emotional ties isn't present. An example would be a coworker with whom you enjoy eating lunch, but would not look to for emotional support.

Soulmate: the name given to someone who is considered the ultimate, true, and eternal half of the other's soul, in which the two are now and forever meant to be together.

Pen pal: people who have a relationship via postal correspondence. They may or may not have met each other in person and may share either love, friendship, or simply an acquaintance between each other.

Internet friendship: a form of friendship or romance which takes place over the Internet.

Comrade: means "ally", "friend", or "colleague" in a military or (usually) left-wing political connotation. This 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. Friendship can be mistaken for comradeship. 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. [...] 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, many comrades return to being strangers, who lack friendship and have little in common.

Casual relationship or "Friends with benefits": the sexual or near-sexual and emotional relationship between two people who don't expect or demand to share a formal romantic relationship. In the U.S., this is considered "a fling".

Boston marriage: a term used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to denote two women that lived together in the same household independent of male support. Relationships were not necessarily sexual. It was used to quell fears of lesbians after World War I.

Blood brother or blood sister: may refer to people related by birth, or a circle of friends who swear loyalty by mingling the blood of each member together.

Open relationship: a relationship, usually between two people, that agree each partner is free to have sexual intercourse with others outside the relationship. When this agreement is made between a married couple, it's called an open marriage.

Roommate: a person who shares a room or apartment (flat) with another person and do not share a familial or romantic relationship.

Imaginary friend: a non-physical friend created by a child. It may be seen as bad behavior or even taboo (some religious parents even consider their child to be possessed by an evil spirit), but is most commonly regarded as harmless, typical childhood behavior. The friend may or may not be human, and commonly serves a protective purpose.

Spiritual friendship: the old buddhist ideal of kalyana-mitra, that is a relationship between friends with a common interest, though one person may have more knowledge and experience than the other. The relationship is the responsibility of both friends and both bring something to it.


[edit] Love
See also: Marriage

Love is closely related to friendship in that it involves strong interpersonal ties between two or more people. A child may love his or her parents or a man may love a woman. Love can also be used in non-personal terms such as a girl may love soccer or someone may love their favorite color.

In terms of interpersonal relationships, there are two distinct types of love:

Platonic love: is a deep and spiritual connection between two individuals. It is love where the sexual element does not enter.
Romantic love: considered similar to Platonic love, but involves sexual elements.

[edit] 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:

“ Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.[4] ”

This is often paraphrased as: "Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests."

The word "friendship" can be used in political speeches as an emotive modifier.Friendship in international relationships often refers to the quality of historical, existing, or anticipated bilateral relationships.


[edit] Interspecies friendship and animal friendship
Friendship as a type of interpersonal relationship is found also among animals with high intelligence[citation needed], such as the higher mammals and some birds. Cross-species friendships are common between humans and domestic animals[citation needed]. Less common but noteworthy are friendships between an animal and another animal of a different species[who?], such as a dog and cat.

See also: ethology, altruism in animals, sociobiology

involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. 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.

Well, yes. But I will never feel it.




I guess that's because I can't accept myself for who I am so then I cannot accept others for who they are. I've also made bad friend choices in the past.



~Pinocchio

I know how that feels.
Meh. Who needs em?

I know how that feels.
Meh. Who needs em?