Friendship - What is it? (10 Signs of a True Friend)

Definition

Friendship is a stable close relationship based on mutual respect, trust and openness, sincerity and warmth of feelings, personal commitment to each other, sympathy, common interests, the need for communication, and willingness to provide selfless help to each other.

Very important:

Friendly feelings arise in contact, in interaction, in relationships. They cannot arise in a vacuum. Europeans cannot be friends with the indigenous inhabitants of the island of Madagascar without correspondence or telephone calls. Contact is absolutely necessary.
Friendly feelings are tested and strengthened in practice, in the practice of life. Very often this occurs after a completely unique situation of rescue from trouble, during inhuman hardships or trials, or during the exchange of gifts of exceptional importance, or in exceptional circumstances. As the Little Humpbacked Horse said: “Now all friendship is needed...” He whispered something over the boiling water, and Ivan not only did not get boiled in a boiling cauldron, but turned into the handsome Ivan Tsarevich.
Friendly feelings arise spontaneously. Their appearance cannot be predicted in advance, ordered “at the behest of a pike, at my will.” You can’t set a certain number in your plan for the year: “Get five reliable friends within a year, so that they won’t spill water.” Therefore, there is always a share of mysticism and miracle in friendship. Appreciate her! Take care of her!
Friendly feelings are feelings between people of equal status. At least the differences in status that exist between them are not emphasized in communication. Metaphorically, one can imagine that friends, at the moment of entering the space of friendly communication, take off their shoulder straps and become equal to each other.

It is understood that friendly mutual assistance is disinterested and is provided free of charge, that is, for nothing. Just like Winnie the Pooh gives a pot without honey to his friend Eeyore. But I insist on a different formulation. Friendly mutual assistance is possible only on conditions of mutual benefit. The currency conversion of this exchange can be any. In one direction - practical help in action, in the other - expert advice. There - recommendation and patronage, back - psychological support and wasted time. Long-term friendly interaction is possible only when the internal subjective barometer-user shows: “I need this friendly exchange, it is beneficial, it is necessary.” As the cat Matroskin said: “Working together for my benefit is ennobling.” It is precisely this subjectively perceived predominance of benefits from friendly relations over costs, subjectively perceived by each participant in friendly communication, that creates the basis for the desire for regular contact, trust, mutual interest, and a tolerant or condescending attitude towards each other’s shortcomings. Whether friends realize it or not, the benefits of communication are always greater than the disadvantages.

To summarize, the main thing a person needs friendship for is protection and support. A friend is someone you can lean on through thick and thin and rely on in times of success and failure. Sometimes a friend's individual success is the real test of friendship, much more serious than grief or misfortune. One of the most significant indicators of true friendship for me is the ability to sincerely rejoice in a friend’s success. But the willingness to help is above all!

What is true friendship?

Some people use the term “friendship” to designate friendly relationships that were formed as a result of a common cause, work, or neighborhood. In life, we are all surrounded by friends and acquaintances, some come, some go. True friendship - what is it, what is it like, how is it different from friendly relationships? True friendship remains between people, despite time and distance, it has been tested over the years and is based on trust, respect and help.

True friendship is when there is mutual understanding and mutual assistance between people. Mutual understanding sometimes arises at the first acquaintance and remains for life, and sometimes it is developed over a long time during close communication and then they say - “he and I have eaten a ton of salt” or “I understand him perfectly.” When people are truly friends, they inevitably become emotionally close “in spirit.”

Mutual assistance is a necessary quality in friendship. As Vizbor sang in the song - “if I get sick, I won’t go to the doctors, I’ll turn to my friends”... Willingness to share joys and sorrows and support in difficult times are indicators that there is real friendship between people. Determining how strong and sincere your friendships are often occurs not in a joyful and serene time for everyone, but in a difficult period, when “a friend is known in trouble.” At the same time, an important indicator of a true friend is the ability to rejoice in the successes and achievements of another.

So why do many people’s attitudes towards friendship change as they age?

The answer, in my opinion, is obvious. In youth, a person is less confident in his own abilities, he is just learning, just mastering this world, trying to find his place in it. He really needs friends at this stage of his life. After all, psychologically he must leave his parental family and face all the trials and challenges of the outside world alone, and become a hero. In these trials, he must harden himself, gain an independent adult position, become successful in his business, find a spouse, and give birth to children. The tasks, you see, are not simple.

And friends play the role of a support group for any person. If in childhood, when faced with fears or powerlessness, he resorted to his parents and sought consolation from them, then at the stage of growing up, the role of psychological support and safety net is played by friends and girlfriends.

Friends improve our quality of life

Friends can change our value system so that we can give more meaning to our lives.

Spending time with friends fills our lives with great conversation, heartfelt care and support, and laughs out loud. When we go through difficult times, friends are always ready to help us. When we succeed, they smile at our good fortune. With practical, positive people in our lives, we will be more mindful of gratitude and doing good deeds for others. We don't just thrive when we have healthy friendships, we thrive.

Men and women have different friendships

Women organize friendly get-togethers - bachelorette parties - with the goal of speaking out and receiving emotional support, exchanging psychological strokes and signs of attention, sympathy and empathy. Such sharing with friends of the details of one’s life drama is sometimes very, very expressive and even theatrical. But no solutions are developed in the process. The sympathy of friends is almost always enough to literally revive the sufferer from the ashes, improve her mood and well-being, and guide her, radiant and renewed, to a new happy life with an easy step.

For men, friendly communication is either common interests, a joint business, or mutual assistance in solving current problems. Men come to each other for specific advice or necessary help. “I tried to get a bear from a den. Nothing works. Help me, friends!

Although there are exceptions to every rule.

Friendship or love: relationships between a man and a woman

In my opinion, it is very important not to confuse these concepts.

Unlike friendship, love relationships are based on the sexual attraction of partners. In its extreme form, pure romance looks like this: “I’m damn attractive, you’re damn attractive. So why waste time? Come to the hayloft at midnight. You will not regret…"

I believe that friendship between a man and a woman is very possible. The options here are:

Impotence or complete lack of sexual attraction to each other.
One partner loves, but the other does not (pseudo-friendship).
One partner has forbidden himself to love (taboo: for example, the beloved is the girlfriend of his best friend, and the thought of a romantic relationship with her is perceived as absolutely unacceptable), and the other simply does not love.
Both partners sublimated sexual energy (for example, into creativity) and completely excluded the sexual context from the relationship.
Both partners are friends, receive mutual benefits from the fact that they train, develop communication skills with the opposite sex before meeting a real lover.
Both partners have a homosexual orientation.
Both friendship partners are monogamous (totally faithful at the level of romantic feelings to their husbands and wives).
Former partners and spouses can maintain relationships after a divorce at the level of friendship if the passion has faded, but they managed to maintain respect for each other, and concerns about joint children oblige them to maintain contact.
Both partners consider a close, trusting relationship without sex possible.
Both partners are too young or too old for sexual and romantic relationships.

Dear reader, I think that this modest list does not exhaust the variety of options. You can add your opinion in the comments.

Systemic reasons and solutions in the case of strange friendships

From the point of view of systemic family therapy, very often friendship between a man and a woman, devoid of sexual overtones, is a consequence of role confusion. A partner of the opposite sex in such friendly relationships can replace (represent) for another a deceased or unborn sister or brother, a son or daughter, a disappeared twin, or an early deceased mother or father.

In this case, sexual relations with such a partner are taboo and nipped in the bud as incestuous. Friends-partners can chat with each other for hours, share the most intimate information, as if in confession, admire each other and experience the warmest, most beautiful, pure feelings for each other, a strong need to see each other, date and do something together, but They don’t even get to the point of sexual interaction. They simply experience, on a symbolic level, those feelings with close relatives that they were not able to fully enjoy within the family.

And it also happens that the confusion concerns the fate and feelings of such a person from the family system, in whose fate there was no happy marriage, sex, family, children, but instead there was loneliness, fulfillment of a monastic vow or military duty, widowhood, marriage without love or death in childbirth.

The confusion of roles, intertwining with the destinies and feelings of such people results in a paralyzing unconscious fear of sexual relationships, and partners are stuck for a long time at the level of friendship. Their relationship does not develop, does not become closer and deeper. They religiously keep their distance. Often, a partner is selected for this from another city or country. And this lasts for years.

The solution to problems of this kind is quite simple in form, but very complex in content. We need to clear up the confusion. Stop playing other people's roles yourself and stop putting on your friend a role that is alien to him. To do this, you must first understand these roles, and then firmly and decisively turn to your life and your relationships without confusion. Accompanying this process of awareness by an experienced professional psychologist is very, very desirable.

The biggest difficulty in this work is the presence of so-called “secondary benefits” from the presence of the problem.

The pain of sexual unfulfillment, constant longing for intimacy, separation and distance in such friendships very often become the exposed nerve of poetic or artistic creativity. Poems flow in a stream, full of aching sadness, unquenched passion... I warn such friends: “After therapy, you may find yourself a mate, a spouse, a sexual partner, but perhaps you will stop writing poetry.” In response I hear: “What are you doing?! How is this possible! I will never give up poetry! I was almost accepted into the union of poets! I have a name in the poetry community.”

“It’s fun to walk through the open spaces together” or why are friends needed?

A person lives in society and inevitably reaches out to communicate with other people, maintaining and nurturing friendly or friendly relationships.

But few of us realize what friendship is and why friends are needed at all. Friends appear and disappear from life in a completely natural way, but is this really so?

How to become a charismatic person? Find out about this from our article.

Psychology and types of friendship

From a psychological point of view, the phenomenon of friendship is defined as a special type of relationship between people, characterized by people’s interest in each other , mutual support, spending time together, devotion and selfless help.

This is, in essence, a marriage , only without sexual relations. Friendships satisfy a person’s need for participation, sharing interests and impressions.

Depending on what a person needs most, friendship is divided into several types:

Friendship-partnership - such communication does not affect personal space and is limited only to the work environment. This is the friendship of colleagues and business partners, which, as a rule, ends if a person changes his field of activity or place of work.
Friendship is born under the influence of temporary circumstances and forced long-term spending time together.
These are fellow students, employees of the same department, neighbors, visitors to the same fitness club or other event. In this case, people choose the company of those with whom they are most comfortable spending time. A distinctive feature of such friendship is that it is not tense - although friends learn about each other’s problems, they do not participate in them in any way.
Friendship-psychological intimacy (or friendship of equals) is the closeness of people with common interests, temperaments, social status, and outlook on life. Such people understand each other perfectly and resemble soul mates. But such friendship does not always last forever - people change and over time stop understanding each other.
Unequal friendship - often a person makes friends with a more successful and bright person because of his low self-esteem. As a rule, the more beautiful and successful friend uses his unpretentious friend for his own purposes.
Situational friendship is forced communication between people connected by one situation: friendship between two parents of schoolchildren, friendship with a “helpful” colleague, and so on.
Friendship-cooperation is a social interaction in which friends exchange experiences, moral feelings, material and psychological support. For this type of friendship, the exchange of impressions and help is very important.
Such cooperation has a kind of “code”: share news, provide moral and material support, provide voluntary assistance in case of trouble, keep secrets, and so on.
Friendship lasts as long as the “code” is followed.
Family friendship - some families have been friends for generations: they visit each other, go out into nature together, gather for events, and so on.
Children's friendship - a person grows up together with his friend and gets to know this world. If this sweet and naive friendship survives all the trials, it will last a lifetime.
Noble friendship does not depend on external circumstances, habits and temperaments of friends, views on the world, distances and other conditions. Such friendship is tested by distance, time, negative life circumstances, etc., and still remains. The main condition for such communication is the ability to be friends and the desire to help and understand.

There is also male and female friendship, which differs from each other only in that women share news and problems with each other, complain about life and ask for advice.

Men are not particularly accustomed to sharing their problems with each other - they simply spend time with their friends.

About the main types of friendship in this video:

Significance at different stages of human development

In early childhood, friendship comes down to walking together, playing games, watching cartoons and other similar activities. Children easily quarrel and make peace, do not try to use each other and benefit from each other.

During adolescence and adolescence, friends become the most important people in a person's life.

It is to them that he entrusts his secrets and secrets, shares all his impressions, and spends hours discussing a film or a book he has read.

Often this communication stops due to moving, entering university and other circumstances.

In adulthood, friends share their everyday problems with each other, ask for advice about relationships, talk about family and troubles at work. Friends do not have time to meet frequently due to lack of time, but this does not spoil the relationship.

Friendship rarely lasts into adulthood and old age - over the years it is simply replaced by marital relationships and raising children. However, there are friendships that last throughout adult life, but this rarely happens.

With age, a person becomes more self-confident, understands what he wants from life, so the need for old friends disappears.

A serious danger to friendship is caused by the marriage of one of the friends - now a person’s whole life will mainly revolve around his lover and children, pushing the friend far into the background.

However, friendship acquires its true meaning in trouble - a true friend will sacrifice his time and interests to help and support.

He does not need to be asked or persuaded - he will voluntarily provide help and will not demand anything in return. In a difficult life situation, such a friend will not allow you to slide into the abyss of despair and depression.

"Pros" and "cons" of friendships

Friendships, like any other, have their advantages and disadvantages.

“Pros” of friendly relations:

satisfying the need for communication;
the opportunity not to be lonely;
common interests with another person - having someone to discuss a book or movie with, going to the planetarium or shopping, and so on;
help and support in any life situation;
psychological help - listen to news and problems, give advice, console, and more.

“Disadvantages” of friendships:

job responsibilities - a friend must help and support, console and listen, regardless of whether he wants it or not;
unjustified expectations from a friend’s behavior;
compliance with certain rules of friendship - the so-called “code”. Each couple or group of friends has their own.

What to do if life becomes boring? Advice from psychologists will help you!

Friends are pulling you down . How to get rid of friends? Adviсe:

Is it possible to live without friends?

Theoretically, a person can live without friends, but in practice such a life can hardly be called full.

Every person unconsciously wants to become part of some social group.

Living in a society without much connection with a specific person, the individual begins to feel lonely and unhappy. Therefore, for a full life a person needs friends.

If a person consciously does not want to make friends, saying that he does not need them, this can mean two different conclusions.

The first conclusion is a person’s reluctance to communicate and share his impressions and life events with someone. Such people are called introverts or phlegmatic people.

The second conclusion is the fear of making friends because of the possible pain that such relationships can bring. A person wants to have friends in his life, but is afraid of being abandoned or rejected one day. Therefore, he rejects such relationships in advance.

How to get rid of the victim complex? Read about it here.

Why are people friends?

The reasons why people form friendships include:

The need for communication - a person feels more comfortable when he can discuss his problems and experiences with another person.
A feeling of safety and self-confidence - being in a group a person feels not alone, protected from possible danger.
Search for self-confidence , some kind of knowledge - if a person does not receive enough care and attention from his parents, then he begins to look for this in the people around him - friends. A friend will always give advice and comfort in moments of despair.
Craving for similar things - according to researchers, people most often make friends with those people who are similar in appearance. People unconsciously begin to be drawn to each other due to external and internal similarities.
The opportunity to be yourself - with friends you don’t have to be good, smart, successful, it’s enough to be as you are.
The fear of being alone is a person’s instinctive desire to be in a “pack”, in a large number of people. This is what ensures survival.

Why is friendship so important to people? Each of us, consciously or unconsciously, strives for the company of other people, making connections and creating and developing friendships.

for any person to have friends for the following reasons:

the opportunity to have fun and cheer yourself up, which has a beneficial effect on mental health;
the opportunity to speak out, share secrets, get advice and support;
receiving help in a difficult situation - even in trouble a person knows that he is not alone, that there is someone who will take care of him;
psychological security and support;
to be helpful - a friend not only speaks out, but also listens and also gives advice. This gives a feeling of significance, need, usefulness;
spending leisure time with a pleasant person - with a friend you can go to the movies, go shopping, go on vacation, go at three o’clock to look at the moon, and so on.

A person has no friends - what does this mean?

It also happens that a person has no friends at all. This phenomenon can mean several things:

Psychological “unneed” for communication and the company of another person. It can also indicate self-sufficiency and originality of the individual, as well as a complex character.
Internal problems that do not allow a person to get close to other people and communicate comfortably.
Fear of betrayal - if in the past a person was offended or betrayed by friends, then in the present he will not want to get close to anyone for fear of being abandoned or betrayed again.
The temperament of an introvert - as a rule, such a person does not need any communication; he is quite happy with his loneliness.
Inability to make friends - such a person makes friends from time to time, but cannot keep them.

As one of the characters in the movie “The Godfather” said, “Friendship is everything. Friendship is more than talent, more than power. It’s almost like family.”

Friendship is truly one of the most important things in life, so you shouldn’t avoid it, but rather go towards it.

Is it true that we need friends? Find out from the video:

Our interesting group:

Source: https://psyholic.ru/obshhenie/zachem-nuzhny-druzya.html

Friendship is a very important help in business

If you're doing business or a project with a good friend you've known since childhood, you're in a situation of greater predictability. After all, you have experience of quarrels and mistakes, grievances and reconciliations, shared emotional experiences. You remained friends, because you found solutions in a wide variety of situations.

You know what to expect from such a business partner. This reduces your risks. This allows you to quickly distribute responsibilities according to each other's strengths and weaknesses. You know them well too. And most importantly, if you are old friends, you always have a common base of values, similarity in life goals and guidelines. It will be easier for you to come to agreements in business.

Universal rules for safety in friendship

1. The first idea is a pilot project

Remember, there are no one hundred percent guarantees of success either in love, friendship, or joint business. Each of these projects could become a lifelong project. A mistake can be very costly and the experience can be very painful.

Therefore, start testing your friendships with a small “pilot project” with the person. Hang wallpaper in your or his apartment, do it together and see how it turns out. The slightest suspicion that you are alone with a fry, and your partner is like seven with a spoon - and there is no point in continuing a further relationship with this person, or rather, deepening it.

Each person is only ready for a certain depth of relationship. Don’t rush your partner to dive headlong into the pool of friendship. Maybe it will grow together and get used to it, or maybe not! Maybe you are destined to remain friends, but never become friends!

Remember that any serious friendship requires some grinding. Remember how D'Artagnan met his friends. They were rude to each other, challenged each other to a duel, intending to kill each other no less. And only the experience of a joint feat - together they repelled the attack of the cardinal's guards - made them look at each other in a new way, see the benefits of cooperation and become friends. It turned out that it was very beneficial to have such a daring and insolent young man as a friend. He fences like a god!

Quick acquaintances occur on the basis of similar interests and values: “Great! I love Mozart’s music too!” But long-term friendships are possible with mutual complementarity and the ability to help. Therefore, the minimum program: do not step on each other’s sore calluses! Don't laugh at his weaknesses! Maximum program: confidently help your partner, using your strengths as a counterbalance to his weaknesses.

2. Idea two - negotiate through dialogue

I never tire of telling all my clients and students: frank and honest dialogue is the best, most reliable foundation of any healthy relationship. This is very difficult work - to speak about your truth openly and sincerely, at the same time not offending your partner, respecting his own truth.

It is very difficult to convey your point of view calmly, structuredly, in the “language of benefit” of your partner, taking into account his interests and values. It is very difficult to listen carefully and respectfully to his point of view and integrate it into your picture of the world. This is a joint work that friends and partners are capable of.

It is important not to turn communication into pure flattery, as in Schwartz’s play “The Naked King”: “Your Majesty! You know that I am an honest old man, a straight old man. I tell the truth straight to the face, even if it is unpleasant... Let me tell you directly, rudely, like an old man: you are a great man, sir! Forgive me my unbridledness - you are a giant! Light!"

3. Idea three - do not abuse your attention and time

Yes, a friend is a person who completes you, adds something very valuable to your life. Helps in trouble, sympathizes in defeat, rejoices at your successes, admires your achievements. But it cannot remain a container for your negative feelings indefinitely. You shouldn’t endlessly exploit his patience and play with one goal.

Please measure the load. He's not the only one who cares about you. Take care of him too. Otherwise, sooner or later the Rabbit will ask Winnie the Pooh and Piglet: “Why is your corporate party always held in my house and at my expense?!”

4. Idea four - don’t live in the cemetery of dead relationships

Yes, at a certain stage of your life you were close friends, helped each other, helped each other out of a variety of situations, saved you from troubles... But sooner or later, the personal development trajectory of each of you can change and everyone can go their own way.

Agree, the friendship of girlfriends changes a lot when one of them gets married and gives birth to children. For many, the death of their only friend becomes an even stronger test. And if he occupied a very important place in your life, made a significant contribution to your mental well-being, and suddenly he is gone - this can become a real life drama.

Each person has his own cemetery of relationships - a mournful list of people whose friendship was interrupted for various reasons. Sometimes he literally lives in this cemetery, lives in the past. Angry that he was abandoned, crying, whining, sad. Often this happens completely unconsciously.

The solution here is simple and complex at the same time. You should not dwell on the feeling of grief and loss, you should not bury yourself and your life along with the death of your only friend or because of separation from him. Look for new acquaintances. I'm sure there are plenty of opportunities for varied communication these days. Interest clubs, yoga, dancing, vocals, painting schools, education and training, summer cottages, sports clubs, volunteer projects - all this helps to unwind and switch gears, to find new friends.

The easiest way to help yourself is to start helping others. If you can establish contact in small things, you will have a chance to establish contact in large things.

Summarize

There is no friendship - look for it! If you find friendship, appreciate it! But remember: nothing is stable in this world. Everything changes: you develop and change, your partner develops and changes, your relationship also changes. And that's okay. Develop and renew relationships to everyone's joy!

From the editor

Both friendship and love are relationships with people. If you can't keep friends, it's unlikely that you'll be able to create a long-term alliance. Often the reason for pathological “bad luck” with people is that you yourself are building destructive relationships. Alexandru Banarescu will tell you how to understand whether you have such a problem :

Solitude is a human necessity, and loneliness is his choice. Indeed, if you think about it, we choose to be alone, consciously or not. Psychologist Olga Khodaeva explains how we strive for loneliness without realizing it ourselves: .

Happiness, both in friendship and in love, is work. To achieve it, you need to avoid the main mistakes in relationships that Olga Spiridonova talks about: .

Why are we friends?

Friendship affects the quality and duration of our lives. Research shows that female baboons who form strong bonds with their peers or immediate family live longer and have more offspring. Apparently, in them, like in humans, in this case adrenocortical activity decreases, the level of short-term stress drops and anabolic processes accelerate, which allows the body to grow and develop better.

Friendship increases your chances of living a long life while maintaining enviable health: the more support a person receives, the lower the risk of viral and heart disease. But the absence of friends is fraught with serious mental problems: self-esteem and self-confidence decrease, anxiety levels increase, and an acute lack of strong social connections can lead to depression.