Friendship is a very peculiar something. Evolutionary it shares quite obvious a purpose; union of the tribe. I’m pretty sure that’s not literally correct, but fortunately for me this article did not sprung from my hands to argue the origin of friendship on a evolutionary scale, but merely its formation on a direct (inter)personal level.

First I’d like to start by citing an article here containing numerical values of how the quantity of friendships seems to have changed in the past 20 years. To summarize it very bluntly: the amount of friends has dwindled down to 2 friends for the average person as of 2004 with a quarter having no true friends whatsoever. Now we face a problem, namely how do we define true friends? The article refers to ‘people in whom to confide matters that were important to them’ which seems to do fairly well to cover up large groups and come up with nice averages. Now if you haven’t done so already, begin analyzing your own friendship status. First of all, realize that you’re not impressing anyone by fooling yourself here with larger-than average amount of friends (also, it is an American study performed on United States citizens, if you don’t live there, it obviously doesn’t apply). Cut through all the people that you honestly don’t care that strongly about or would never confide a secret in. If you are young, perhaps of upper high school or college age, stay truthful when cutting people out; how many of those you interact with daily or attend parties with or whatever are truly your friends. Regardless of culture, count me surprised if your number exceeds 5.

Now this paragraph wasn’t planned, but I stumbled upon (www.wikiquote.org) some nice quotes concerning (true) friendship in general, I picked out the ones I liked most;

• If you should die before me, ask if you could bring a friend.
  • Stone Temple Pilots

I like this one a lot because it relates to the amount of sacrifice you should be able to provide to a friend. If this is not something you would say (in ernest) to a person that’s left on your ‘true friend list’ from above, you two might not be as close as you think.

• True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.
  • D.T. Gentry

I have no idea who D.T. Gentry is, but clearly he is not an idiot. Awkward silences are looked down upon in Western society because, well because they are awkward and annoying and while you feel you should be the one to do the talking you can’t come up with anything to say. The basic premise is that one feels comfortable around a true friend without exception.

• The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.
  • Katherine Mansfield

Now this quote is not nice per sé, but its implications are what matters here. Although friendships are quite often borne from similarity between two or more persons, true friends continue to be friends even when ties of common interests are severed.

Now for the original purpose of this article, I’d like to bring forth my hypothesis of 3 reasons how true friendships may be formed. I’m not claiming these to be absolute in any way and I am very happy to discuss similar and opposing views, however at the moment I do believe them to be at least roughly correct.

First is friendship by childhood. I believe one of the most common permanent friendships result from friendships established at a younger age. Strangely enough I have no reason for this, though I suppose it results from many shared childhood and/or growing-up experiences.

Friendship by similarity. After childhood and puberty has made way for young adolescence and its followers the main source of friends shifts from proxy to interest. It is well known that like seeks like and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that people with the same interests will quicker become friends than a Nazi and a Jew.  

Our third member of our friendly trinity is friendship by suffering. Although probably the rarest of friendships, actual physical suffering forges a bond between individuals that may transcends into true friendship.

It is very important to realize that more often than not, not one of the above can possibly be responsible for friendship; at least two are needed. To illustrate; not everyone you grew up with is your friend, let alone a good friend, same goes for book-club buddies or military comrades. If we take two out of three conditions, friendship scenario’s become more likely; consider a veteran war-buddy  who shares the same interests as you or a childhood friend you grew up with in an orphanage. Similarly your friend with whom you shared the majority of your childhood and has the same hobbies as you could quite probably be your best friend right now.

True friends are those, when all things are torn asunder, offer you half their bread while they themselves are starving.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.