Friendship is a relationship between two people who hold mutual affection for each other. Friendships and acquaintanceship are thought of as spanning across the same continuum. The value of friendshop is often the result of friends consistently demonstrating the following :
- The tendency to desire what is best for the other
- Sympathy and empathy
- Honesty, even in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth
- Mutual understanding and compasion, ability to go to each other for emotional support
- Enjoyment of each other's company
- Trust in one another
- Positively strong, deep, close reciprocity, mutually -- equal give-and-take between the two parties
- The ability to be oneself, express one's feelings and make mistakes without fear of judgement
Types of Friendships
1. Acquaintace -- not a true friend - sharing of emotional ties is absent. An example would be a coworker with whom one enjoys eating lunch or having coffee, but would not look to for emotional support. Many 'friends' that appear on social networking sites are generally acquaintaces in real life.
2. Best friend (or close friend) -- a friend someone shares extremely strong interpersonal ties with as a friend.
3. Blood brother or blood sister -- either people related by birth, or a circle of friends who swear loyalty by mixing the blood of each member together, the latter carries the risk of transmitting infections such HIV.
4. Boston marriage -- an antiquated American term used during the 19th and 20th centuries to denote two women who 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 1.
5. Bromance -- a close non-sexual relationship between two (or more) men, a form of homosocial intimacy.
6. Buddy -- in the USA, males and sometimes females often refer to each other as 'buddies', for example, introducing a male friend as their 'buddy', or a circle of male friend as 'buddies'. Buddies are also acquaintances that one has during certain events. The term may also refer to an online contact, such as the AOL Buddy List. It also refers to a close friend.
7. Casual relationship or 'friends with benefits' -- a sexual or near-sexual relationship between two people who do not expect or demand to share a formal romantic relationship. This can also refer to a 'hook-up'.
8. Family friend -- a friendship extended to family members of the friends. Close relation is developed in those societies where family ties are quite strong. This term is usually used in the Indian subcontinent.
9. Comrade -- means 'ally', 'friend', or 'colleague' in a military or 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. As a war, or a common enemy recedes, many comrades return to being strangers who lack friendship and have a little in common. Sometimes they even become enemies in another war.
10. Cross-sex friendship -- a person having a friend of the opposite sex with having little or no sexual or romantic activity: a male who has a female friend, or a female who has a male friend.
11. Frenemy -- a portmanteau of the words fr(iend) and enemy, the term frenemy refers to someone who pretends to be a friend but actually is an enemy--a proverbial wolf in a sheep's clothing in the world of friendships.
12. Imaginary friend -- a non-physical friend created by a child or even an adult.
13. Internet relationship -- a form of friendship or romance which takes place over the internet. Internet friendships are in similar context to pen pals. These friendships are also based on the thought that they may never meet in real life, they know each other for who they are instead of the mask they may use in real life.
14. Mate -- in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealend, blokes oftten refer to each other as 'mates'.
15. 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 is called an 'open marriage'.
16. Communal friendship -- a friendship in which the friends gather often to provide encouragement and emotional support in times of great need. This type of friendship tends to last only when opposing parties fulfill the expectations of support for the relationship.
17. Agentic friendship -- a friendship in which both parties look toward each other for help in achieving practical goals in their personal and professional life.
18. Pen pal -- people who have a relationship via postal correspondence.
So, what kind of your friend/s now?
