different types of friendship essay

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Essay on Friendship

List of essays on friendship, essay on friendship – short essay for kids (essay 1 – 150 words), essay on friendship – 10 lines on friendship written in english (essay 2 – 250 words), essay on friendship – for school students (class 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) (essay 3 – 300 words), essay on friendship – for students (essay 4 – 400 words), essay on friendship (essay 5 – 500 words), essay on friendship – introduction, benefits and qualities (essay 6 – 600 words), essay on friendship – essay on true friendship (essay 7 – 750 words), essay on friendship – importance, types, examples and conclusion (essay 8 – 1000 words).

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Who is in this world does not have a friend?

A friend, with whom you just love to spend your time, can share your joys and sorrows. Most importantly you need not fake yourself and just be what you are. That is what friendship is all about. It is one of the most beautiful of the relations in the world. Students of today need to understand the values of friendship and therefore we have composed different long essays for students as well as short essays.

Audience: The below given essays are exclusively written for school students (Class 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Standard).

Introduction:

Friendship is considered as one of the treasures that anyone can possess. God has given us the liberty to choose friends because they are for our lifetime. It is quite normal for our parents and siblings to love us because they are our own blood but a friend is someone who is initially a stranger and then takes his/her place above all the other relations. Friendship is nothing but pure love without any expectations.

Role of a Friend:

True friends share and support each other even during the toughest of times. A true friend is one who feels happy for our success, who feel sad for our failures, fight with us for silly things and hugs us the next second, gets angry on us when we do any mistakes. Friendship is all about having true friends who can understand us without the need for us to speak.

Conclusion:

Friendship is very essential for a happy life. Even a two-minute chat with a friend will make us forget our worries. That is the strength of friendship.

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Friends are those you can choose for yourself in spite of the difference you both have from each other. A good friend in need will do wonders in your life, whenever you are in need of self-realization, upbringing your confidence and more.

Friendship serves you best not only in your happiest moments but also when you feel low in emotions. A life without a good friend is not at all complete and an emptiness will be felt all the time you think of sharing your emotion that can’t be told to anyone else.

Honesty and Patience in Friendship:

To maintain and keep going with a good deep friendship, honesty is the most important factor. You should choose a person who can be cent percent honest with you in all perspective like emotions, decision making, etc. Trustworthy friendship will help you to take better decisions and choose a better path for your future well-being.

Tolerance and patience with each other are another important characteristics of long-lasting friendship. Accepting the differences, friends should be able to be with each other in all situations. As a friend, the person should lead the other to success by being a motivation and criticize the person if they choose the wrong path.

Friendship will give you sweet and happy memories that can be cherished for a lifetime and if you succeed in maintaining that precious relation, then you are the luckiest person in this world. Love and care for each other will cherish the relationship and helps the person to appreciate each thing done without any fail.

Of all the different relations which we indulge in, friendship is considered to be the purest of them all. Friendship is the true confluence of souls with like minded attitude that aids in seamless conversation and the best of times. It is believed that a person who doesn’t have any friend lives one of the toughest lives.

The Desire to Belong:

Each one of us have been so programmed that we need a companion even if it’s not romantic, someone just to tag along. There are several definitions of friendship and it is upon you as to how you believe your relation to be. Friendship can happen when you are simply sharing a bowl of food with a person day after day. It can be expressed in the way you silently care for someone even when they may not be aware of your existence.

The Little Moments that Matter:

It is giving up the little things you love dearly for the sake of someone you cherish a great deal. Friendship often refers to the little moments of senseless laugh you two share when the rest of the world starts to look bleak. It is to know what your friend needs and being there for them even when the rest of the world has turned their back towards them.

Friendship is the kind of relation which sometimes even exceeds the realms of love because it is all about giving without even once bothering to sense what you shall get back. Every time spent is special because when you are with friends, you don’t feel the blues!

The Bottom-Line:

Of course the definition of friendship is going to vary a great deal from one person to another. But, remember one thing, when you are friends with someone, be prepared to put your heart on the line for their happiness because friendship often manifests into love, even if it is not romantic, it always is true!

Friendship is the most valuable as well as precious gifts of life. Friendship is one of the most valued relationship. People who have good friends enjoy the most in their live. True friendship is based on loyalty & support. A good friend is a person who will stand with you when times are tough. A friend is someone special on whom you can rely on to celebrate a special moment. Friendship is like a life asset and it can lead us to success. It all depends on our choice how we choose our friends.

The quality of friendship is essential for happiness. The benefits of healthy friendship remains long-life. In addition, having a strong friend circle also improves our self-confidence. Due to the strong relationship, we get much emotional support during our bad times. True friendship is a feeling of love & care.

Real friendship cannot be built within limited boundaries like caste or creed. It gives us a feeling that someone really needs us & we are not alone. This is true that man cannot live alone. True friends are needed in every stage of life to survive. A true friend can be an old person or a child. But it is generally believed that we make friend with people who are of the same age as ours. Same age group can give you the freedom to share anything.

The selection of a true friend is also a challenging task. We have to carefully make our friend selection. Friends might come & go. They will make you laugh & cry. Wrong selection can create various problems for you. In the modern world, many youngsters become a social nuisance. The reason behind it is wrong & bad friendships.

But if we successfully choose the right person as a friend then our life becomes easier. It doesn’t matter who you are, what type of clothes you wear. The most important thing is trust because the relation of friendship stands on the pillars of trust.

Friendship is a relation which can make or break us in every stage of life. But in other words, friendship is an asset which is really precious. Obviously, it is also not so easy to maintain friendships. It demands your time as well as efforts. Last but not the least, it is hard to find true friendship but once you succeed in this task you will have a wonderful time. In exchange for that a friend will only need your valuable time and trust.

The idea of friendship is either heartwarming or gives cold feet depending on individuals and the types of friendships. In the current world, friendships have had different definitions based on the morality and civilization of the society. Ideally, friendship is defined as the state of mutual trust between individuals or parties. Trust is an important component of friendship because it determines the reliability and longevity of the friendship. Trust is built through honest communications between the individuals and interested parties.

Once trust has been established, mutual understanding and support being to form the resulting in a friendship. This friendship can be broken through lack of trust. Trust can be breached through deceit and/ or some people, it differs with the frequencies. There are people who will break friendships after only one episode of dishonesty whereas some people give second chances and even more chances. Friendship types determine the longevity and the causes of breakups. The importance of friendship in the lives of individuals is the reason why friendships are formed in the first place.

Types of Friendships:

According to Aristotle’s Nichomachean ethics, there are three types of friendships. The friendships are based on three factors i.e. utility, pleasure and goodness. The first type of friendship is based on utility and has been described as a friendship whereby both parties gain from each other.

This type of friendship is dependent on the benefits and that is what keeps the friendship going. This type of friendships do not last long because it dissolves as soon as the benefits are outsourced or when other sources are found outside the friendship. The friendship was invented for trade purposes because when two people with opposite things that depend on each other re put together, trade is maximized.

The second type of friendship is based on pleasure. This is described as friendship in which two individuals are drawn to each other based on desires of pleasure and is characterized by passionate feelings and feelings of belonging. This type of friendship can ether last long or is short-lived depending on the presence of the attraction between the two parties.

The third type of friendship is based on goodness. In this friendship, the goodness of people draw them to each other and they usually have the same virtues. The friendship involves loving each other and expecting goodness. It takes long to develop this kind of friendship but it usually lasts longest and is actually the best kind of friendship to be in. the importance of such a friendship is the social support and love.

In conclusion, friendships are important in the lives of individuals. Trust builds and sustains friendships. The different types of friendships are important because they provide benefits and social support. Friendships provide a feeling of belonging and dependence. The durability of friendships is dependent on the basis of its formation and the intention during the formation. Friendships that last long are not based on materialistic gain, instead, they are based on pure emotion.

Friendship is an emotion of care, mutual trust, and fondness among two persons. A friend might be a work-mate, buddy, fellow student or any individual with whom we feel an attachment.

In friendship, people have a mutual exchange of sentiments and faith too. Usually, the friendship nurtures more amongst those people who belong to a similar age as they possess the same passions, interests, sentiments, and opinions. During the school days, kids who belong to the similar age group have a common dream about their future and this makes them all of them get closer in friendship.

In the same way, employees working in business organizations also make friends as they are working together for attaining the organizational objectives. It does not matter that to which age group you belong, friendship can happen at any time of your life.

Benefits of Friendship:

Sometimes friendship is essential in our life. Below are a few benefits of friendship.

1. It’s impossible to live your life alone always but friendship fills that gap quickly with the friend’s company.

2. You can easily pass the rigidities of life with the friendship as in your distress period your friends are always there to help you.

3. Friendship teaches you how to remain happy in life.

4. In case of any confusion or problem, your friendship will always benefit you with good opinions.

True and Dishonest Friendship:

True friendship is very rare in today’s times. There are so many persons who support only those people who are in power so that they can fulfil their selfish motives below the name of friendship. They stay with friends till the time their selfish requirements are achieved. Dishonest friends leave people as soon as their power gets vanished. You can find these types of self-seeking friends all around the world who are quite hurtful than enemies.

Finding a true friendship is very difficult. A true friend helps the other friend who is in need. It does not matter to him that his friend is right or wrong but he will always support his friend at the time of his difficulty.

Carefulness in the Selection of Friendship:

You must be very careful while choosing friends. You should nurture your friendship with that person who does not leave you in your bad times easily. Once you get emotionally attached to the wrong person you cannot finish your friendship so soon. True friendship continues till the time of your last breaths and does not change with the passing time.

Friendship with a bad person also affects your own thoughts and habits. Therefore, a bad person should not be chosen in any type of circumstances. We must do friendship with full attention and carefulness.

Best Qualities of Good Friendship:

Good friendship provides people an enormous love to each other.

The below are the important qualities of good friendship:

1. Good friendship is always faithful, honest, and truthful.

2. People pay attention and take note of others thoughts in good friendship.

3. Persons quickly forget and let off the mistakes of the other friend. In fact, they accept their friend in the way they are actually.

4. You are not judged on the basis of your success, money or power in it.

5. Friends do not feel shy to provide us with valuable opinions for our welfare.

6. People always share their joyful times with their good friends and also stay ready to help their friends in the time of need.

7. True friends also support others in their professional as well as personal life. They encourage their friends in the area of their interest.

Friendship is established over the sacrifice, love, faith, and concern of mutual benefit. True Friendship is a support and a blessing for everybody. All those males and females who have true and genuine friends are very lucky really.

Friendship can simply be defined as a form of mutual relationship or understanding between two people or more who interact and are attached to one another in a manner that is friendly. A friendship is a serious relationship of devotion between two or more people where people involved have a true and sincere feeling of affection, care and love towards each other devoid of any misunderstanding and without demands.

Primarily friendship happens between people that have the same sentiments, feelings and tastes. It is believed that there is no limit or criteria for friendship. All of the different creed, religion, caste, position, sex and age do not matter when it comes to friendship even though friendships can sometimes be damaged by economic disparity and other forms of differentiation. From all of these, it can be concluded that real and true friendship is very possible between people that have a uniform status and are like-minded.

A lot of friends we have in the world today only remain together in times of prosperity and absence of problems but only the faithful, sincere and true friends remain all through the troubles, times of hardships and our bad times. We only discover who our bad and good friends are in the times where we don’t have things going our way.

Most people want to be friends with people with money and we can’t really know if our friends are true when we have money and do not need their help, we only discover our true friends when we need their help in terms of money or any other form of support. A lot of friendships have been jeopardised because of money and the absence or presence of it.

Sometimes, we might face difficulty or crises in our friendships because of self-respect and ego. Friendships can be affected by us or others and we need to try to strike a balance in our friendships. For our friendship to prosper and be true, we need satisfaction, proper understanding and a trustworthy nature. As true friends, we should never exploit our friends but instead do our utmost best to motivate and support them in doing and attaining the very best things in life.

The true meaning of friendship is sometimes lost because of encounters with fake friends who have used and exploited us for their own personal benefits. People like this tend to end the friendship once they get what they want or stab their supposed friends in the back just to get what they think is best for them. Friendship is a very good thing that can help meet our need for companionship and other emotional needs.

In the world we live in today, it is extremely difficult to come across good and loyal friends and this daunting task isn’t made any easier by the lie and deceit of a lot of people in this generation. So, when one finds a very good and loyal important, it is like finding gold and one should do everything to keep friends like that.

The pursuit of true friendship Is not limited to humans, we can as well find good friends in animals; for example, it is a popular belief that dogs make the best friends. It is very important to have good friends as they help us in times and situations where we are down and facing difficulties. Our true friends always do their best to save us when we are in danger and also provide us with timely and good advice. True friends are priceless assets in our lives, they share our pains and sorrow, help provide relief to us in terrible situations and do their best to make us happy.

Friends can both be the good or the bad types. Good friends help push us on the right path in life while on the other hand, bad friends don’t care about us but only care about themselves and can lead us into the wrong path; because of this, we have to be absolutely careful when choosing our friends in this life.

Bad friends can ruin our lives completely so we have to be weary of them and do our best to avoid bag friends totally. We need friends in our life that will be there for us at every point in time and will share all of our feeling with us, both the good and bad. We need friends we can talk to anytime we are feeling lonely, friends that will make us laugh and smile anytime we are feeling sad.

What is friendship? It is the purest form of relationship between two individual with no hidden agenda. As per the dictionary, it is the mutual affection between people. But, is it just a mutual affection? Not always, as in the case of best friends, it is far beyond that. Great friends share each other’s feelings or notions which bring a feeling of prosperity and mental fulfillment.

A friend is a person whom one can know deeply, as and trust for eternity. Rather than having some likeness in the idea of two people associated with the friendship, they have some extraordinary qualities yet they want to be with each other without changing their uniqueness. By and large, friends spur each other without censuring, however at times great friends scrutinize do affect you in a positive manner.

Importance of Friendship:

It is very important to have a friend in life. Each friend is vital and their significance in known to us when certain circumstances emerge which must be supported by our friends. One can never feel lonely in this world on the off chance that he or she is embraced by true friends. Then again, depression wins in the lives of the individuals who don’t have friends regardless of billions of individuals present on the planet. Friends are particularly vital amid times of emergency and hardships. On the off chance that you wind up experiencing a hard time, having a friend to help you through can make the change simpler.

Having friends you can depend on can help your confidence. Then again, an absence of friends can make you feel lonely and without help, which makes you powerless for different issues, for example, sadness and drug abuse. Having no less than one individual you can depend on will formulate your confidence.

Choosing Your Friends Wisely:

Not all friends can instill the positivity in your life. There can be negative effects as well. It is very important to choose your friends with utmost wisdom. Picking the right friend is somewhat troublesome task however it is extremely important. In the event that for instance a couple of our dear friends are engaged with negative behaviour patterns, for example, smoking, drinking and taking drugs, at some point or another we will be attracted to their bad habits as well. This is the reason behind why it is appropriate to settle on an appropriate decision with regards to making friends.

Genuine friendship is truly a gift delighted in by a couple. The individuals who have it ought to express gratitude toward God for having genuine pearls in their lives and the individuals who don’t have a couple of good friends ought to always take a stab at better approaches to anchor great friends. No organization is superior to having a friend close by in the midst of need. You will stay cheerful in your one-room flat on the off chance that you are surrounded by your friends; then again, you can’t discover satisfaction even in your estate in the event that you are far away from others.

Types of Friends:

There is variety everywhere, so why not in friends. We can see different types of friends during our journey of life. For instance, your best friend at school is someone with whom you just get along the most. That friend, especially in the case of girls, may just get annoyed even if you talk to another of your friend more than her. Such is the childish nature of such friendships that at times it is difficult for others to identify whether you are best friends or competitors.

Then there is another category of your siblings. No matter how much you deny, but your siblings or your elder brother and sisters are those friends of yours who stay on with you for your entire life. You have a different set of friendship with them as you find yourself fighting with them most of the times. However, in times of need, you shall see that they are first ones standing behind you, supporting you.

There is another category of friends called professional friends. You come across such friends only when you grow up and choose a profession for yourself. These friends are usually from the same organisation and prove to be helpful during your settling years. Some of them tend to stay on with you even when you change companies.

Friendship Examples from History:

History has always taught us a lot. Examples of true friendship are not far behind. We have some famous example from history which makes us realise the true value of friendship. The topmost of them are the Krishna and Sudama friendship. We all must have read or heard as to how after becoming a king when Krishna met Sudama, his childhood friend, he treated him with honour even though Sudama was a poor person. It teaches us the friendship need not be between equals. It has to be between likeminded people. Next example is of Karna and Duryodhana, again from the Mahabharat era.

Despite knowing the fact that the Pandavas were his brothers, Karna went on to fight alongside Duryodhan as he is his best friend and even laid down his life for him. What more example of true friendship can one find? Again from the same era, Krishna and Arjun are also referred to as the best of the friends. Bhagavad Gita is an example of how a true friend can guide you towards positivity in life and make you follow the path of Dharma. Similarly, there are numerous examples from history which teach us the values of true friendship and the need to nourish such for own good.

Whether you accept or deny it, a friend plays an important role in your life. In fact, it is very important to have a friend. However, at the same time, it is extremely important to choose the friends wisely as they are the ones who can build you or destroy you. Nonetheless, a friend’s company is something which one enjoys all through life and friends should be treated as the best treasure a man can have.

Friendship , Relationship

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The 7 Types of Friends, and Which Is Most Essential for Our Happiness

Less-intimate friendships may matter more than you thought..

Posted November 5, 2021 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

• There are seven basic types of friendships and they all have value.
• Feeling that you are part of a larger community can positively affect life satisfaction and longevity.
• Making the effort to connect and communicate with those who "people your life" can change your own life for the better.

There’s no doubt that social connections are important to our happiness . When you think of important friendships, which of your relationships spring to mind first? Your best friend from childhood whom you haven’t seen in years, but when you hear their name, it conjures up vivid memories of your shared exploits and a case of the warm fuzzies? Or your current “band of brothers” or “girl squad” who have your back, no matter what? Maybe it’s your super tight network of co-workers with whom you spend more than half your waking hours, five or six days a week? Or the neighbors that you hang with as you watch the kids play, the dogs romp, the coffee perk, or the grass grow? Maybe your BFF is also your forever partner, for better or worse?

All of these friendships are important. Data from a recent survey exploring friendship networks revealed that most of us, regardless of age, have cultivated a wide variety of social relationships. Here’s an overview of the specific friendship types that were explored:

• Lifelong Friends
• Best Friends
• Close Friends
• Social Group Friends (friends you socialize with but with whom you are not particularly close)
• Activity Friends (friends with whom you engage in specific activities, such as “gym buddies,” members of your book club or dinner club, church circles, and so on)
• Friends of Convenience (the folks with whom you might share carpooling duties, youth sports team parents, neighborhood groups, and so on)
• Acquaintance Friends (people at work, people you see each day when you’re walking your dog, folks you know to speak to, but not about anything of consequence or especially personal)

Do You Need One of Each?

To thrive in an increasingly isolating world, it’s helpful to have connections with others that reflect varying degrees of closeness. In fact, regardless of age, having friends of all types was positively related to life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is a global measure of subjective well-being often used to assess happiness and quality of life. The connection between social engagement and longevity, psychological and physical health, and overall contentment has been the subject of much research. Not only are these variables important to happiness, but research also indicates that novelty affects life satisfaction, as well (Buchanan & Bardi, 2010). This finding underscores the value of having a variety of social interactions in the course of your week: This will invite opportunities to engage in different ways with different people, which brings novelty into your life. Regardless of where you are in your life, age- wise , stage-wise, or location-wise, it’s important to cultivate a multi-faceted network of friendships. This also invites diverse people into your life who can help you grow beyond your comfort zone and encourage you to learn about other perspectives and ways of looking at and living life.

How Many Friends Do You Need?

The number of friends we tend to have among the different types isn’t really determined by our age, our relationship status, or whether or not we live alone. You’re never too old to create the friendships you need to help support your mental health and social well-being. About half of the people in the study felt that they had too few close friends, the other half felt they had plenty. And a couple felt they had too many.

Another finding is that each of us has highly individual needs related to how many friends we feel is the “right” number. If you don’t believe you have enough friends, how many do you think would be the “right” number to have? Among survey respondents who felt they currently had “too few” friends, the desired number varied greatly. Some people felt that having 2 or 3 close friends would be just right. Others felt that having 4 to 6 would be best. A few even believed 7 or more close friends would be the perfect number.

So, your next question might be, how many friends do people who feel they have “enough” close friends actually have? Well, of the group, 10% had just one close friend and found that to be enough. About half of this group had 2 or 3 close friends and were totally satisfied with that number. Another third of the group had 4 to 6 friends and the remaining participants—about 10% of the total—had 7 or more. While none of us need the same number of friends, we all need close friends for support.

Which Friends are Most Essential for Our Happiness?

During the height of the pandemic when we were unable to gather together with the people we cared most about, the number of acquaintance friends in our networks was the strongest predictor of life satisfaction. Being isolated from others left us eager for social interaction, even if we were masked up and six-feet apart from the person who was dropping off our groceries and the other dog walkers in the park. Over the last 6-8 months, as guidelines and restrictions have loosened, the unexpectedly strong value of acquaintance friends has also lessened somewhat. The number of acquaintance friends we have is positively correlated with our level of life satisfaction, but the number of lifelong friends, best friends and close friends we have are the strongest predictors of overall contentment with life.

Does a Friendly Smile and Pleasant Word Change Your Life?

There’s value in weaving ourselves into a web of connection with others in our community. Everyone’s neighbor, Fred Rogers, always focused on the inherent value of each person in our neighborhood, no matter what role they played. These current findings fully support the benefits of being engaged with all of the folks who fill our lives in the course of a week. There is a lot to gain from the deep, intimate conversations you enjoy with your closest friends as well as from friendly greetings or brief chats you offer to your mailperson or Amazon driver, the dog walkers who pass your window, the cashier at the pharmacy, the folks who are always on the same train on your commute, and even the annoying kids who run across your lawn. Engaging with others and establishing a connection, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, can make a positive difference in your overall well-being. Smile more, engage more, and live a longer and happier life.

If you'd like to share your experiences with social relationships and friendships, please consider participating in this study: Social Relationships and the Pandemic

Facebook image: Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

Degges-White, S. (in process). The Effects of the Pandemic on Social Relationships . Ongoing study related to the ways in which the pandemic affected social and romantic relationships

Buchanan, K. E., & Bardi, A. (2010). Acts of Kindness and Acts of Novelty Affect Life Satisfaction. The Journal of Social Psychology, 150, 235-237, DOI: 10.1080/00224540903365554

Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D. , is a licensed counselor and professor at Northern Illinois University.

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127 Friendship Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

When you have a good friendship topic, essay writing becomes as easy as it gets. We have some for you!

📝 Friendship Essay Structure

🏆 best friendship topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 good essay topics on friendship, 🎓 simple & easy friendship essay titles, 📌 most interesting friendship topics to write about, ❓ research questions about friendship.

Describing a friend, talking about your relationship and life experiences can be quite fun! So, take a look at our topics on friendship in the list below. Our experts have gathered numerous ideas that can be extremely helpful for you. And don’t forget to check our friendship essay examples via the links.

Writing a friendship essay is an excellent way to reflect on your relationships with other people, show your appreciation for your friends, and explore what friendship means to you. What you include in your paper is entirely up to you, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t structure it properly. Here is our advice on structuring an essay on friendship:

• Begin by selecting the right topic. It should be focused and creative so that you can earn a high mark. Think about what friendship means to you and write down your thoughts. Reflect on your relationship with your best friend and see if you can write an essay that incorporates these themes. If these steps didn’t help – don’t worry! Fortunately, there are many web resources that can help you choose. Browse samples of friendship essays online to see if there are any topics that interest you.
• Create a title that reflects your focus. Paper titles are important because they grasp the reader’s attention and make them want to read further. However, many people find it challenging to name their work, so you can search for friendship essay titles online if you need to.
• Once you get the first two steps right, you can start developing the structure of your essay. An outline is a great tool because it presents your ideas in a clear and concise manner and ensures that there are no gaps or irrelevant points. The most basic essay outline has three components: introduction, body, and conclusion. Type these out and move to the next step. Compose an introduction. Your introduction should include a hook, some background information, and a thesis. A friendship essay hook is the first sentence in the introduction, where you draw the reader’s attention. For instance, if you are creating an essay on value of friendship, include a brief description of a situation where your friends helped you or something else that comes to mind. A hook should make the reader want to read the rest of the essay. After the hook, include some background information on your chosen theme and write down a thesis. A thesis statement is the final sentence of the first paragraph that consists of your main argument.
• Write well-structured body paragraphs. Each body paragraph should start with one key point, which is then developed through examples, references to resources, or other content. Make sure that each of the key points relates to your thesis. It might be useful to write out all of your key points first before you write the main body of the paper. This will help you to see if any of them are irrelevant or need to be swapped to establish a logical sequence. If you are composing an essay on the importance of friendship, each point should show how a good friend can make life better and more enjoyable. End each paragraph with a concluding sentence that links it to the next part of the paper.
• Finally, compose a conclusion. A friendship essay conclusion should tie together all your points and show how they support your thesis. For this purpose, you should restate your thesis statement at the beginning of the final paragraph. This will offer your reader a nice, well-balanced closure, leaving a good impression of your work.

We hope that this post has assisted you in understanding the basic structure of a friendship paper. Don’t forget to browse our website for sample papers, essay titles, and other resources!

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• What Is the Meaning of True Friendship
• A Literary Analysis of Friendship in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Factors Contributing to the Ups and Downs of Friendship in Knowles’ A Separate Peace
• Friendship and Love in the Little Prince
• Confidantes, Marriage, and Friendship in Pride and Prejudice
• What Makes A Successful Friendship
• Understanding Friendship Through The Staircase Model
• An Analysis of Friendship and Rejection in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
• A Discussion on the Different Types of Friendship
• An Analysis of Friendship in Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• A Literary Analysis of Friendship in a Separate Peace by John Knowles
• An Analysis of the Concept of Friendship in A Separate Piece by John Knowles
• A Separate Peace and Of Mice and Men – Real Friendship
• The Theme of True Friendship in the Book of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Value of Friendship in Great Expectations
• What Makes A Good Friendship
• The Theme of Friendship in Separate Ways by Higuchi Ichiyo and Uncanny Stories by SongLing
• Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism
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• Aristotle ‘s Views On Friendship
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• An Analysis of Friendship and Loyalty in the Film The Deer Hunter
• Turning Away from True Friendship
• Different Types of Friendship and The Need for Friends
• An Analysis of the Dangers of Friendship
• The Victorian Female Friendship and Homosexual References in Emily Dickinson’s Work
• What Is Friendship And How Is God Man ‘s Best Friend?
• The Venerable Kassapa Thera: A Living Symbol of Dedication, Courage, Altruism and Intimate Friendship
• “The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds” by Michael Lewis
• Building from Happiness to Friendship
• What Do You Think Steinbeck Says About the Theme of Friendship in of Mice and Men
• Distributive Justice and the Problem of Friendship
• How Does Shakespeare Demonstrate That Love and Friendship Can Overcome Greed in the Merchant of Venice?
• Does Borrowing Money From Friends Harm Friendship?
• Can Friendship Be Defined by Any Scientific Criteria?
• How Can Enduring Happiness Arise From Friendship?
• Does Campus Diversity Promote Friendship Diversity?
• Is There Any Objection to the Teacher Establishing a Friendship Relationship With the Students?
• How Do Children Cope With Friendship and Death After Reading Charlottes Web?
• Does Ragging Develop Friendship?
• How Does Shakespeare Create Friendship?
• Should Becoming Friends With Benefits Ruin Your Friendship?
• How Does the Nature of Children’s Friendship Change With Age?
• Do Friendships Vary Across Countries?
• What Are Friends for and How Can a Friendship Be Tested?
• How Does the Theme of Loneliness Affect the Friendship and Relationships in “Of Mice and Men”?
• What Are the Elements That Build a Strong Friendship?
• How Does Friendship Help Students Succeed in the University?
• What Does Friendship Mean?
• How Does Friendship Help With Your Mental Health?
• What Does True Friendship Require?
• How Do Friendship Network Characteristics Influence Subjective Well-Being?
• What Was Aristotle’s Thought on Friendship?
• How Do Friendship Networks Work in Online P2P Lending Markets?
• Why Is Friendship Important?
• How Has Friendship Changed Because of the Spread of Social Networking?
• Why Does Friendship End?
• How Do Society and Culture Affect Friendship?
• Can Everything Be Bought for Money?
• How Do Gamers Take the Gaming Experience, Elements Such as Friendships Outside the Game Context?
• Do Friends Generally Have Similar Educational Interests?
• What Individual and Country-Level Factors Might Interact With Friendship Importance to Predict Health and Well-Being?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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How the 4 Types of Friendship Fit Into Your Life

Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and a professor at Yeshiva University’s clinical psychology doctoral program.

Oliver Rossi/DigitalVision/Getty

The 4 Types of Friends

Friendships ebb and flow, signs of a good friend, signs of a bad friend, how to know someone is no longer a good friend.

We know that friendship is important to our health and happiness. In fact, research shows us that friends are as important to our well-being as family. However, friendship can span a ton of different types of relationships.

There are the friends we only meet at parties, and there are our ride-or-die BFFs. There are the friends we’ve grown up with, who know our lives inside out, and there are work friends whom we eat lunch with every day. There are friends we hang out with once in a while, and friends whom we can’t go a day without talking to.

All of these different types of friends play different roles in our lives. Whatever types of friends you have, it's important to know the signs of a good friend versus a bad friend, and how to know if someone isn’t a good friend anymore.

At a Glance

Acquaintances are people we know but haven’t really spent time with. Casual friends are the friends we hang out with at work or pottery class, for company and camaraderie. Close friends are our besties that we share everything with. Lifelong friends, or childhood friends, are practically family.

All of these different types of friends contribute to the social fabric of our lives, offering support, comfort, advice, companionship, a sense of belonging, some laughs, and a whole lot of memories.

Verywell Mind tapped Britt Melewski , LMSW, a practitioner at The Dorm, to unpack the four different types of friendships and how they fit into our lives.

Acquaintances

Acquaintances are friends we’ve met a few times, either at parties or through mutual friends. We kinda sorta know their names and a little bit about their lives; however, we probably haven’t had any deep heart-to-heart conversations with them or spent much time with them one-on-one.

Acquaintances are people whom we have surface-level interactions with, without any significant emotional involvement in the relationship, Melewski explains.

Acquaintances can offer:

• Friendly interactions: We might have a friendly, casual chat with an acquaintance if we run into them at a party or a coffee shop. The vibe is typically easy breezy.
• Social media connections: We may like or comment on each other’s social media posts from time to time.
• Networking opportunities: We may occasionally help each other out with ideas, advice, or connections, particularly if we discover that we share a common hobby or interest.

Casual Friends

Casual or social friends are people we might befriend at the office, gym, or book club, for instance. 

We know more about the person than we would about an acquaintance; however, the foundation of the relationship often rests on shared environments or activities, like a sports team, a workplace, or a hobby group, Melewski explains. “The connection is more tied to the shared activity than a strong personal bond.” 

We might interact with these friends fairly regularly because of the shared environment or activity. As we get to know each other, we might start to chill with them before, during, or after the activity.

Casual friends might offer:

• Companionship: Casual friends are our go-to people for activities such as getting lunch together at work or hitting up the neighborhood juice bar after yoga class.
• Shared interests: We might share common interests or hobbies with these friends. Whether it's a love for a particular sport, a hobby like baking, or an enthusiasm for a specific TV series, casual friends provide an outlet for discussing shared interests.
• Light-hearted conversation: We can engage in light and fun conversations with casual friends. These conversations may involve laughter and playful banter as we spend time together and discuss everyday topics.
• Low-pressure interactions: Unlike close friends or family members, there's less pressure and emotional investment in casual friendships. We can enjoy each other's company without the expectation of being intimately involved in each other's lives.

Close Friends

Close friends are our besties, the people in our inner circle. These are the friends that we bond with instantly, talk to often, share our struggles with, and confide our deepest darkest fears to. These are often the friends that our values most closely align with, Melewski explains.

Close friends offer:

• Emotional support: Close friends are our emotional anchors. They provide a safe space where we can freely express our thoughts, feelings, and fears without worrying about being judged.
• Trust: These friends are the ones we can count on, no matter what. They’re loyal to us and have our back.
• Comfort: Close friends provide comfort and consolation in times of loss, heartbreak, and grief. They understand our pain and offer emotional and practical support.
• Fun: Close friendships are also characterized by a lot of fun and laughter. We have inside jokes, common interests, and a shared sense of humor.
• Quality time: Spending time with close friends is a priority. We enjoy each other's company and make an effort to connect regularly, whether over a meal, coffee, or a fun activity. These friends are our go-to people for celebrating birthdays, holidays, achievements, and special occasions.
• Advice: Close friends are our sounding boards . When we're considering an idea or facing a dilemma, they offer support, advice, guidance, and perspective.
• Love: Close friendships are built on a foundation of love and care. These friends accept us for who we are, flaws and all, and love us unconditionally. Our well-being is genuinely important to them.
• Accountability: Close friends hold us accountable for our actions and decisions. They give us honest feedback, helping us grow and make better choices. Their inputs come from a place of love and genuine concern.

Lifelong Friends

Lifelong friends are the people we’ve been friends with since childhood. These are often the friends you can be your most authentic self with, says Melewski.

Lifelong friends offer:

• Steadfastness: Lifelong friends have a steadfastness that is similar to that of family members. They’ve been a part of our life’s journey from childhood to adulthood. They’ve been a constant presence in our lives and their friendship has stood the test of time.
• Shared experiences: These friends have witnessed the different phases of our lives and crossed every milestone with us. Our shared history creates a strong sense of connection and understanding.
• Belonging: In many cases, lifelong friends become as close as family. We share traditions, holidays, and significant life events with them, creating a deep sense of belonging .
• Familial ties: Lifelong friends are often close to our family members and vice versa, creating familial ties that go beyond just our relationship.
• Timelessness: These friendships transcend time and distance. Even if we haven't seen each other in years, it feels like no time has passed at all when we reunite. Lifelong friendships pick up right where they left off.
• Lifelong memories: Lifelong friends are keepers of our shared memories. They remember the childhood stories, the inside jokes, and the adventures we've had together, making every reunion a trip down memory lane.

These categories aren’t necessarily permanent, fixed, or as clear-cut as we might want them to be—and that’s OK, says Melewski. 

For instance, he explains that an acquaintance can become a close friend or a work colleague who starts off as a casual friend can become a best friend with time. "On the other hand, knowing someone from childhood doesn't always guarantee an intimate connection. Childhood friends need more than history; they require mutual support and effort."

He adds that relationships, friendships included, are destined to naturally ebb and flow, aligning with one's personal growth. “For example, how we are able to show up in a friendship when we are in high school or in our college years may look different than when we are in the throes of new parenthood or a demanding career.”

If you’re trying to determine whether someone is a good friend, Melewski recommends asking yourself the following questions:

• Do you feel comfortable being your most genuine, authentic self around this person?
• Do they generally bring out the best in you?
• Do you trust them with the information you share with them?
• Do you feel respected and embraced for who you are?
• Can you confidently seek their assistance?
• Can you safely express your disagreement?
• Are open conversations and constructive feedback a part of your dynamic?

If your responses to these questions are predominantly “yes”, chances are that you have a good friend in this person, says Melewski.

On the other hand, these signs could indicate that someone is not necessarily a good friend:

• Betrayal: The person betrays your confidences or spreads gossip about you behind your back.
• Jealousy: The person competes with you and feels jealous or threatened by your success.
• Constant criticism: They constantly criticize you, belittle your achievements, or make hurtful remarks, eroding your self-esteem and self-worth .
• Self-centeredness: They are self-centered and tend to consistently put their needs and interests ahead of yours. They are dismissive of your feelings, problems, or accomplishments and only focus on their own.
• One-sidedness: They never initiate contact, plan get-togethers, or reach out. You're the one making all the effort to maintain the friendship. 
• Manipulation: They manipulate you emotionally, gaslight you, guilt-trip you into doing things you're not comfortable with, take advantage of your kindness, or create unnecessary drama in your life.
• Disrespect for boundaries: They disregard your boundaries and push you into situations you're uncomfortable with.
• Inauthenticity: If you find it challenging to be your true self, feel compelled to compromise your authenticity, and are always treading on eggshells around them, the relationship might not be a positive one, says Melewski.

Sometimes, we refer to people as our friends because we have a shared history with them, even if the dynamic has changed over time.

There are many factors that go into whether or not someone is still a good friend but most of it drills down to how you feel in the relationship over time, says Melewski. He recommends asking yourself:

• Is the friendship feeling one-sided ?
• Do you feel that you are no longer being heard, understood, or prioritized?
• Are your boundaries not being respected?
• Does your time spent together feel draining ?
• Has there been a breach of trust with no effort to repair it?
• Do you feel like they’re competing with you in some way?
• Are you feeling used ?

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” it may be worth reevaluating the friendship and discussing your concerns with your friend.

Dunbar RIM. The anatomy of friendship . Trends Cogn Sci . 2018;22(1):32-51. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2017.10.004

Blieszner R, Ogletree AM, Adams RG. Friendship in later life: a research agenda . Innov Aging . 2019;3(1):igz005. doi:10.1093/geroni/igz005

Kitts JA, Leal DF. What is(n't) a friend? Dimensions of the friendship concept among adolescents . Soc Networks . 2021;66:161-170. doi:10.1016/j.socnet.2021.01.004

By Sanjana Gupta Sanjana is a health writer and editor. Her work spans various health-related topics, including mental health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness.

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10.2: Stages and Types of Friendships

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• Jason S. Wrench, Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter & Katherine S. Thweatt
• SUNY New Paltz & SUNY Oswego via OpenSUNY

Learning Outcomes

• Differentiate among Rawlins’ seven stages of friendships.
• Evaluate Matthews three basic types of friendships.
• Compare and contrast healthy and unhealthy friendships.

In Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical, Merrily We Roll Along , the story follows the careers and friendships of three people trying to make it in New York City. One song in the show has always stuck out because of its insightful message about friendship, “Hey Old Friends.” In the musical, three friends Mary, Charlie, and Frank get together after not having seen each other for a while. The purpose of the song is to discuss how some friendships can persist even when we aren’t in each other’s lives daily. You can see a clip from the rehearsal at the New York City Center’s Encore’s production starring Celia Keenan-Bolger (Mary), Colin Donnell (Frank) and Lin-Manuel Miranda (Charley). In this short song, we learn a lot about the nature of this group’s friendship and their enduring desire to be close to one another through the ins and outs of life. This section of the chapter is going to examine the stages that friendships through, the types of friendships we have, and healthy vs. unhealthy friendships.

Stages of Friendships

As we’ve already discussed, friendships are not static relationships we’re born with. Instead, these relationships are dynamic, and we grow with them. To help us understand how we ultimately form friendships, William Rawlins broke this process into seven stages of friendships (Figure 1). 30

Role Delimited Interaction

The first stage of friendship is called role delimited interaction. The basic idea behind this stage is that we all exist in a wide range of roles within our lives: shopper, salesperson, patient, driver, student, parent/ guardian, spouse, etc. In each of these different roles, we end up interacting with a wide range of different people. For example, imagine you’re just sitting down in a new class in college, and you talk to the stranger sitting next to you named Adilah. In this case, you are both interacting within your roles as students. Outside of those roles and that context, you may never meet and never have the opportunity even to develop a social relationship with this other person. This does not discount the possibility of random, chance encounters with other people. Still, most of our interpersonal relationships (outside of our family) stem from these roles and the communicative contexts they present.

Friendly Relations

From role delimited interaction, we may decide to move to the second stage of friendship, friendly relations. These relations are generally positive interactions, but they still exist within those same roles. In our example, we start chatting with Adilah before the beginning of each class. At this point, though, most of our interactions are still going to be within those roles, so we end up talking about the class, fellow students, the teacher, homework assignments, etc. Notice that there is not a lot of actual self-disclosure happening within friendly relations. Some people can maintain friendly relations with others for years. For example, you may interact with coworkers, religious association members, and neighbors within this type of relationship without them ever progressing to the next stage of friendship. According to Rawlins, friendly relationships move towards friendships because they start to exhibit four specific communication behaviors:

• moves away from what is required in the specific role relationship,
• fewer stereotyped lines of interaction,
• individual violations of public propriety, and
• greater spontaneity. 31

First, we start interacting in a manner that doesn’t resemble the original roles we had. In our example, we start interacting in a manner that doesn’t resemble the roles of students when they first meet. Second, we move away from lines of communication that are stereotypes for our roles. For example, some possible stereotyped lines for two students could include, “what did you think of the homework;” “did you bring your book with you today;” “see you next class;” etc. In each of these lines, we enact dialogue that is expected (or stereotyped) within the context of the class itself. Third, more of our normal selves will start to seep into our interactions, which are called violations of public propriety. Maybe one day Adilah turns to you before class, saying, “That reading for homework was such a waste of time.” In this case, Adilah is giving you a bit more insight into who she is as a person “These violations of public propriety single an individual out as having an essential side which is not so easily circumscribed by the protocol of a situation.” 32 Lastly, we see increased spontaneity in our interactions with the other person. Over time, these interactions, although still interacting within their formal roles, take on more social and less formalized tones. Maybe one day Adilah tells you a joke or shares a piece of gossip she heard. In this case, Adilah is starting to be more spontaneous and less structured in her interactions.

Moves-Toward-Friendship

At some point, people decide to interact with one another outside of the roles they originally embodied when they initially met. This change in roles is a voluntary change. In our example, maybe one day Adilah invites you to get coffee after class, and then another day, you ask her to get lunch before class. Although it’s possible that a single step outside of those roles could be enough that a friendly relation is moving towards a friendship, there is generally a sequence of these occurrences. In our example here, Adilah may have made the first move inviting us to coffee, but we then reciprocated later by asking her to lunch. In both of these cases, we are starting to step outside of the original friendly relation and changing the nature of our original interactions.

Nascent Friendship

When one enters into the nascent stage of friendship, the friends are no longer interacting within their original roles, and their interactions do not follow the stereotypes associated with those roles. Eventually, we start to develop norms for how we communicate with this other person that are beyond those original roles and stereotypes. Ultimately, this stage is all about developing those norms. We develop norms for what we talk about, when we talk, and how we talk. Maybe Adilah makes it very clear that she doesn’t want to talk about politics or religion, and we’re perfectly OK with that. Maybe we keep the bulk of our interaction before and after class, or we start having lunch together before class or coffee after class. The norms will differ from friendship to friendship, but these norms allow us to set parameters on the relationship in this early stage. These norms are also important because keeping them demonstrates that we can be trusted. And when we show we can be trusted over time, the level of intimacy we can develop within our relationship also increases.

It’s also during this period that others start to see you more and more as a pair of friends, and external forces may begin to impact the development of your friendship as well. In our case, maybe Adilah has a sister who also goes to the school, so she starts hanging out with both of you from time to time. Maybe we have a significant other, and he/she/they start hanging out as well. Even though we may have these distractions, we must keep faithful to the original friendship. For example, if we start spending more time with Adilah’s sister than Adilah, then we aren’t faithful to the original friendship. Eventually, the friendship crystalizes, and others start to see the two friends as a pair. One of our coauthors had a friend in graduate school, and it was very common for people to ask the friend when our coauthor couldn’t be found or ask the coauthor when the friend couldn’t be found. Friends in the nascent state are seen increasingly as a “duo.”

Stabilized Friendship

Ultimately nascent friendships evolve into stabilized friendships through time and refinement. It’s not like one day you wake up and go, “My friendship has stabilized!” It’s much more gradual than that. We get to the point where our developed norms and interaction patterns for the friendship are functioning optimally for both parties, and the friendship is working smoothly. In nascent friendships, the focus is on the duo and developing the friendship. In stabilization, we often bring in new friends. For example, if we had found out that Adilah had coffee with another person from our class during the nascent stage of friendship, we may have felt a bit hurt or jealous of this outsider intruding on our growing friendship. As stabilized friends, we realize that Adilah having coffee with someone else isn’t going to impact the strength of the relationship we already have. If anything, maybe Adilah will find other friends to grow the friendship circle. However, like any relationship, both parties still must make an effort to make the friendship work. We need to reaffirm our friendships, spend time with our friends, and maintain that balance of equity we discussed earlier in this chapter.

Rawlins also notes that friendships in the stabilized stage can represent three different basic patterns: active, dormant, and commemorative. 33 Active friendships are ones where there is a negotiated sense of mutual accessibility and availability for both parties in the friendship. Dormant friendships “share either a valued history or a sufficient amount of sustained contact to anticipate or remain eligible for a resumption of the friendship at any time.” 34 These friends may not be ones we interact with every day, but they are still very much alive and could take on new meaning and grow back into an active friendship if the time arises. Commemorative friendships are ones that reflect a specific space and time in our lives, but current interaction is minimal and primarily reflects a time when the two friends were highly involved in each other’s lives. With commemorative friendships, we still see ourselves as friends even though we don’t have the consistent interaction that active friendships have.

In a study conducted by Sara LaBelle and Scott Myers, the researchers set out to determine what types of relational maintenance strategies people use to keep their friendships going across the three different types of friendship patterns (active, dormant, & commemorative). 35 Using the seven relational maintenance behaviors noted by Laura Stafford (positivity, understanding, self-disclosure, relationship talks, assurances, tasks, & networks), 36 the researchers recruited participants over the age of 30 to examine the intersection of relational maintenance and friendship types. All three friendship types use positivity, relational talks, and networks related to relational maintenance to some degree. However, active friendships were more likely than commemorative friendships to use understanding, self-disclosure, assurances, and tasks to maintain their friendships. No differences were seen in relational maintenance strategies between active and dormant friendships nor dormant friendships and commemorative friendships.

Waning Friendship

Unfortunately, some friendships will not last. There are many reasons why friendships may start to wane or decrease in importance in our lives. There are three primary reasons Rawlins discusses as causes: “an overall decline in affect, an individual or mutual decision to let it wane based on identifiable dissatisfaction with the relationship, or a significant, negative, relational event which precipitates an abrupt termination of the friendship.” 37 First, some relationships wane because there is a decrease in emotional attachment. Some friends stop putting in the time and effort to keep the friendship going, so it’s not surprising that there is a decrease in emotional attachments. Second, both parties may become dissatisfied with the relationship and decide to take a hiatus or spend more time with other friends. Lastly, some relationship-destroying event could happen. For example, you find out that Adilah had an affair with your romantic partner. Adilah broke a promise to you or told someone one of your secrets. Adilah started yelling at you for no reason and physically assaulted you. Each of these events would most likely destroy your friendship.

A wide range of different events could end a friendship. In a study conducted by a team of researchers led by Amy Janan Johnson, the researchers interviewed college students about why their friendships had terminated. 38 The most common reasons listed for why relationships fell apart were 1) romantic partner of self or friend, 2) increase in geographic distance, 3) conflict, 4) not many common interests, 5) hanging out with different groups or different friends, and 6) other. Interestingly, females and males in the study did report differences in the likelihood that these five reasons led to deterioration. Females reported that conflict was a greater reason for friendship deterioration than males. And males reported not having many common interests was a greater reason for friendship deterioration than females. Females and males did not differ in the other three categories. It’s important to note, that while this set of findings is interesting, it was conducted among college students, so it may not apply to older adults.

Post-Friendship

The final stage of the friendship is what happens after the friendship is over. Even if a friendship ended on a horrible note, there are still parts of that friendship that will remain with us forever, impacting how we interact with friends and perceive friendships. You may even have symbolic links to your friends: the nightclubs you went to, the courses you took together, the coffee shops you frequented, the movies you watched, etc. all are links back to that friendship. It’s also possible that the friendship ended on a positive note and you still periodically say hello on Facebook or during the holidays through card exchanges. Just as all friendships are unique, so are their experiences of post-friendship reality.

Friendship Styles

Beyond the stages of friendship development, different people develop different types of friendship throughout their lifetime. Sarah H. Matthews noted that ultimately people have three basic types of friendships: independent, discerning, and acquisitive (as seen in Figure 2). 39

Independent

In her study, Matthews found that independents often saw their friendships based on specific circumstances in their lives and not necessarily specific friends. When talking about friends, independents were more likely to about “people they knew” or “people they had known,” not reflecting on specific names. Independents were more likely to mention specific names when they talked about people they were interacting with currently. For example, independents talked about friends during periods of their life (e.g., elementary school, junior high/middle-school, high school, college) and not about specific people they knew for long periods of life. Matthews argues that independents framed their concepts of friendships regarding major life events. They also never reported having a close, special, or best friend relationship, so during periods of major life events, they didn’t have specific commitments to the people they called “friends.” Independents were also more likely to talk about friends as a general concept instead of specific friends. Comparing independents to the stages of friendship discussed by Rawlins, you can consider these to be more along the lines of “friendly relations.” Matthews chose the term “independents” because it reflects a more autonomous state, “It was clear that most of them were not isolated people, but instead considered themselves to be sufficient unto themselves.” 40

The second type of friendship discussed by Matthews was the discerning style, which, unlike independents, is marked by a deep connection with a friend or group of friends regardless of changing circumstances in their lives. These friendships are marked by deep commitment and longevity, which also means that when a discerning person loses a friend, they are the most likely to experience a deep sense of loss in their lives. Discerners were also more likely to draw clear lines between friendly relations and friendship. Overall, “the discerning identified … only a very few people throughout their lives whom they considered friends. Although not all of these informants had kept these friendships, those who had, valued them highly.” 41

Acquisitive

The final friendship style discussed by Matthews is the acquisitive style. Acquisitives are “people who moved through their lives collecting a variety of friendships, allowing circumstances to make possible the meeting of likely candidates, but then, committing themselves to the friendships once they were made, at the very least for the period of time during which they and their friends were geographically proximate.” 42 Unlike the independents, acquisitives discussed having close connections with all of the friends they’ve met, and unlike the discerning, acquisitives were open to developing new friendships throughout their lives. In essence, these individuals develop a strong, core group of friends as they go throughout their lives while acquiring new ones depending on changes within their lives.

Good and Bad Friendships

Another system for understanding friendships is to think of them with regard to two basic psychological constructs: health and enjoyment. First, is the relationship a healthy one for you to have? Although this is a concept that is more commonly discussed in romantic relationships, friendships can also be healthy or unhealthy (Table 1).

In addition to the health of a friendship, you must also question if the friendship is something that is ultimately enjoyable to you as a person. Does this friendship give you meaning of some kind? Ultimately, we can break this down into four distinct types of friendship experiences people may have (Figure 3).

Ideal Friendship

The first category we label as “ideal friends” because these relationships are both healthy and enjoyable. In an ideal world, the majority of our relationships would fall into the category of ideal friendships.

The second category we label as “waning friendship” because these friendships are still healthy but not enjoyable anymore. Chances are, this friendship was an ideal friendship at some point and has started to become less enjoyable over time. There’s a wide range of reasons why friendships may stop being enjoyable. It’s possible that you no longer have the time to invest in the friendship, so you find yourself regretting the amount of time and energy that’s necessary to keep the friendship afloat.

Problematic Friendship

The third category of friendship, classified as problematic friendships, is tricky because these are enjoyable but not healthy for us. Ultimately, the friend we have could be a lot of fun to hang out with, but they also could be more damaging to us as people. Instead of supporting us, they make fun of us. Instead of treating us as equals, they hold all the power in the relationship. Instead of being honest, we always know they’re lying to us. Ultimately, we must question why we decide to stay in these relationships.

Deviant Friendship

The final category of friendships we may have is deviant friendships, more commonly referred to as toxic friendships. For our purposes here, we use the term “deviant” because it refers to any behavior that violates behavioral norms. In this case, any friendship situation that is clearly outside the parameters of what is a healthy and enjoyable friendship is not the norm. Unfortunately, some people get so stuck in these friendships that they stop realizing that these friendships aren’t normal at all. Other people may think that their deviant friendships are the only kinds of friendships they can get and/or deserve. It’s entirely possible that a deviant friendship started as perfectly healthy and normal, but often these were somewhat problematic in their early stages and eventually progressed into fully deviant friendships.

Deviant Friends:

• Use criticism and insults as weapons
• Use guilt to get you to cave-in to their desires and whims
• Immediately assume you’re lying (probably because they are)
• Disclose your personal secrets
• Are very gossipy about others, and are probably gossipy about you as well
• Only care about their own desires and needs
• Use your emotions as weapons to attack you psychologically
• Pass judgment on you and your ideas based on their own with little flexibility
• Are stuck up and only really turn to you when they need you
• Can be obsessively needy, but then are very hard to please
• Are inconsistent, so predicting how they will think or behave can be very hard if not impossible
• Put you in competition with their other friends for affection and attention
• Conversations tend to be all about them and their desires and needs
• Make you feel that being your friend is a chore for them
• Make you feel as if you’ve lost control over your own life and choices
• Cross major relationship boundaries and violate relationship norms without apology
• Express their jealousy of your other friendships and relationships

Key Takeaways

• Rawlins proposed that friendships go through seven distinct stages. The first stage, role delimited interaction, is where we interact with a broad range of people within specific roles we play in life. The second stage, friendly relations, occurs when we have continuous positive interactions with someone, but the interactions still exist within those same roles. The third stage, moves-toward-friendship, occurs when people decide to interact with one another outside of the roles they originally embodied when they initially met. The fourth stage, nascent friendship, occurs when the friends are no longer interacting within their original roles, and their interactions do not follow the stereotypes associated with those roles. The fifth stage, stabilized friendship, reflects friendships that have developed norms and interaction patterns that are functioning optimally for both parties, and the friendship is working smoothly. The sixth stage, waning friendship, occurs when a friendship decreases in importance in our lives. The final stage, post-friendship, occurs after a friendship has been terminated.
• Sarah H. Matthews proposed three basic types of friendships that people have: independent, discerning, and acquisitive. Independents see friendships based on specific circumstances in their lives and not necessarily on specific friends. Discerning friendships are marked by a deep connection with a friend or group of friends regardless of changing circumstances in their lives. Lastly, acquisitive individuals develop a strong, core group of friends as they go throughout their lives while acquiring new ones depending on changes within their lives.
• To understand healthy versus unhealthy friendships, it’s also important to consider whether an individual finds that relationship enjoyable or unenjoyable. People who are in a healthy and enjoyable friendship are in an ideal friendship. Individuals who are in a healthy friendship that is unenjoyable are in a waning friendship. People who are in unhealthy friendships that are enjoyable are in a problematic friendship. Lastly, people who are in unhealthy friendships that are unenjoyable are in a deviant friendship.
• Think back on a friendship that you no longer have. Take that friendship through all seven of Rawlins’ friendship stages. How did you decide when the friendship entered into a new stage?
• Think about your patterns of friendships in your life. Based on the information you learned from Matthews, what type of friendship style do you have? What made you decide that this friendship style most accurately reflects your approach to friendships?
• Thinking about the intersection of healthy friendships and enjoyability, think of one friendship from your own life (past or present) that fits into each category. After coming up with four friendships, differentiate among the four friendships and their outcomes.

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A friendship essay is precisely what it sounds like: a paper that students write to describe their relationships with their mates.  It is among the many assignments that students are given in their college institutions.  Writing essays about friendship is a great way to analyze what the connection means to you and reflect on some of your encounters. It can also be used as a tool to improve your closeness and affection. This blog post offers tips you may consider while writing your paper and its outline. It features friendship essay examples that help generate ideas that form the primary focus of your paper.  If you are not ready to waste your time on essay writing, StudyCrumb is here to offer affordable prices and professional writers.

What Is a Friendship Essay?

The definition of friendship essay is quite clear and straightforward. A paper about friends can be described as a write-up on a relationship between two or more people. This interpretation makes it easier to obtain the meaning of friendship essay.  Writing such thematic essay will help you communicate your feelings as well as your thoughts. It allows you to recollect your memories about different encounters you have had in life. It will also help you evaluate qualities of your connection.  While writing, you may have a sequence of events starting from your meet-up, activities you have done together, and how you have sustained the connection. Preparing an essay about friendship can evoke memories from your past that may have been long forgotten.

Purpose of an Essay on Friendship

This kind of essay aims to help you explore its nature and form, its pros and cons, and its role in your life. The importance of friendship essay is that it acts as a reflective tool. It helps you realize the significance of creating and maintaining good relationships with friends. It also explains how these connections contribute to your overall wellness. In addition, an article about friendship may teach you to understand that true friendship is priceless and should stand the test of time.

Ideas to Write a Friendship Essay on

Writing essays about friendship is a more manageable task than drafting a paper about a topic that may require more detailed research. Any excellent essay about true friendship starts with an idea that you can examine.  Below are some unique ideas you can explore:

• What is friendship?
• What does friendship mean to me?
• The value of friendship you cherish in your life.
• Cross-cultural friendships.
• The role of friendship in mental health maintenance.

As you reflect on your relationship with your friend, see if you can write a paper incorporating these themes. Remember to choose an idea that interests you and is relevant to your personal experiences or research. Be sure to support your arguments with evidence and examples from real-life situations, literature, or academic research. Look through our definition essay topics or persuasive essay ideas to find a theme that suits your task best.

Friendship Essay Outline

An essay outline about friendship is a summary of what your write-up will contain but in a less detailed format. You use it to organize and structure your content logically and effectively. It presents the main topics and subtopics hierarchically, allowing writers to see the connection between different parts of the material. The importance of an outline lies in its ability to help writers plan, organize, as well as clarify their ideas. This makes the writing of an essay about friends more efficient, and the final product is more coherent and effective. Here is an example of an outline for a friendship essay.

• Briefly introduce the topic of friendship
• Provide a thesis statement that summarizes the main points of the essay
• Topic sentence
• Your main argument
• Real-life examples that support your key idea
• Supporting evidence
• 3rd Body Paragraph
• Examples or recommendations
• Summarize the main points
• Provide some food for thought

Note that this is a general outline. The exact structure and content of your essay will depend on the specific requirements of your assignment and your personal interests.

Structure of a Friendship Essay

The structure of an essay on friendship typically includes the following three parts.

• Introduction An introduction should grab the reader's attention and provide background information. It should also include a clear thesis statement that sets a path and direction of the friendship essays.
• Body The essay's body is where you will provide evidence and details to underpin your thesis statement. It should consist of several paragraphs supporting and developing a statement of purpose. Each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of your friendliness, such as its importance, benefits, or challenges.
• Conclusion Briefly summarize the essay's main points and reinforce your principal argument. The conclusion should leave a lasting impression on readers and emphasize your topic's significance. Overall, the structure should be clear and well-organized, allowing the audience to follow your argument and understand the topic's significance.

Friendship Essay Introduction

A good introduction about friendship essay should grab the reader's attention and encourage them to continue reading. This can be achieved through a " hook ," a quote, an interesting fact, or a thought-provoking question. Background information can then be provided to give context to the discussed topic.  The introduction to an essay about friendship should also clearly state your main point or argument of the piece, known as thesis statement. This sets pace for the rest of the paper and gives readers a clear view of what to expect. A friendship essay introduction should be concise, engaging, and provide context for the audience to understand the content fully.

Read more: How to Start off an Essay

Friendship Essay Introduction Example

Here is an example of a friendship essay introduction that sets the stage for a reflective and thought-provoking exploration of the most precious gift in life.

Friendship is a special bond that unites two individuals with common interests, experiences, and emotions. It makes life easier and contributes to our happiness. It is a relationship that transcends race, religion, and socio-economic status and has power to sustain and uplift the spirit of humans. In this essay, I will explore its benefits and how it can contribute to a better world. Through personal anecdotes, I will illustrate the bond's depth and role in our day-to-day lives.

Friendship Essay Thesis Statement

The friendship thesis statement aims to provide a summary of the essay's main point. It can be one or two sentences which you develop as you research. The statement of purpose should focus on the central argument and be supported by evidence presented in the body. The thesis statement about friendship should guide the essay's structure. Its main objective is to provide your reader with a roadmap to follow. It should be specific, concise, and accurately reflect the content in your paper. Understanding what constitutes a strong thesis is crucial for writers as it is integral to every essay writing process.

Friendship Thesis Statement Example

The thesis statement must be clear to readers so that they may quickly recognize it and comprehend the paper's significance. It should act as a blueprint of what to expect. A friendship thesis statement sample could be:

In this essay, I will explore friendship's meaning, its importance, benefits, drawbacks, and how it can contribute to a better world. Through a series of personal anecdotes, I will illustrate the bond's depth and its key role in our lives.

Friendship Essay Body

The body part should include five or more paragraphs. Students will use body paragraphs to elaborate on the key factors that make their connection special.

• Definition and explanation. This friendship body paragraph should start with a definition and a brief explanation of its characteristics and qualities.
• Importance of friends. Discuss why it is vital in your life and how it contributes to personal growth and welfare.
• Types of friendships. A paragraph about friendship should discuss different types of friend's relationships that exist.
• Qualities of a good friend. Discuss standards a great confidant should possess.
• Challenges. Discuss the common problems that friends face.
• Ways to strengthen friendship. Provide tips on reinforcing and maintaining good relationships.
• Conclusion. Sum up the key points made in your essay and reiterate the importance of genuine bonds in life.

Friendship Body Paragraph Example

Below is a friendship body paragraph sample.

How to Spend Free Time with Friends • Outdoor Activities. Spending time in nature is a great way to bond with friends. You can meet, then go for a hike, take a walk, or go to a picnic in a park. This allows you to connect and enjoy the beautiful world around you. • Movie Night. Watching a movie is another fun activity you can do with friends. You can share popcorn, grab snacks, and enjoy a movie together. This is a great way to relax and unwind. • Board Games. Playing board games with friends is a fun and interactive way to spend free time. You can play classic games like Monopoly. This is a great way to challenge each other and have a good time.

Friendship Essay Conclusion

Any conclusion on a friendship essay should sum up the main ideas discussed in your essay and restate the thesis statement. It should leave a lasting impression and provide a closure to your topic. To start writing a conclusion about a friendship essay, commence by rephrasing the thesis statement in different words. Summarize the points discussed in your essay by connecting them back to your statement of purpose. End conclusion with a final thought or call to action that leaves a lasting impression on your reader.  It is vital to keep it concise yet impactful. Avoid introducing new information or arguments, as it can confuse readers. Instead, focus on tying up loose ends and emphasizing main ideas discussed in your essay.

Read more: How to Conclude an Essay

Friendship Essay Conclusion Sample

Here is an example of a friendship essay conclusion:

In conclusion, friendship is an essential aspect of our lives that brings joy, support, and companionship. It is a relationship built on mutual trust, understanding, and love. A true friend will always be there for you, no matter what. As humans, we need sincere friends to help us navigate life's ups and downs and provide emotional support. An understanding friend can withstand any obstacle and bring happiness to our lives. The connection is meant to last a lifetime, whether through shared experiences, interests, or simply a common bond. Ultimately, having a close group of loyal friends who truly care for us is one of the greatest gifts we can receive in life.

How to Write an Essay on Friendship?

To write an essay about friendship, start by brainstorming ideas about what friends mean to you and the benefits of such kinds of relationships. Knowing how to write a good essay about friendship involves selecting a great topic and arranging your content in a manner that has logical flow.

1. Come Up With a Topic About Friendship

To brainstorm essay topics on friendship, consider the following.

• Reflect on your own experiences. Think about your own bonds and encounters you have had with allies. Avoid bad occurrences. This can inspire topics to explore in your essay. To find a subject that interests you, you can also look through internet examples of friend essays.
• Ask questions related to friends, such as "What makes a meaningful connection?" or "How does the quality of your bond change over time?"
• Talk to others. Ask friends, family, or classmates about their experiences. They may have interesting insights that can inspire new topics for your essay.

Ensure that topic you select is appropriate for your report style. For example: 

The Day my Best Friend Changed My Life.

You can start this topic by how you met, narrate your story, and then pick out some attributes of a good friend and the advantages of the relationship. Remember to choose a topic on friendship essay that you feel passionate about and can explore in depth in your essay.

2. Do Research

To research and collect information for the friend essay, follow these steps.

• Start with a general search. Use search engines like Google to find articles, books, and other resources on affection.
• Identify keywords. Determine the most relevant keywords for your essay, such as "essay about a friend." Use them in your search to narrow down results to the most pertinent information.
• Evaluate sources. When you have a list of potential sources, evaluate each to determine their credibility and relevance. Look for sources that are written by experts in the field and that have been peer-reviewed or published in reputable journals.
• Take notes. As you read, take notes on the most important and relevant information.

3. Develop a Friendship Essay Outline

An outline is a useful tool for organizing ideas in an essay and it ensures that your essay has a structure. Before outlining you need to have a clear vision of what your essay will focus on. Then analyze every piece of information that you have and categorize it into headings. An outline of an essay about friendships will comprise a list which consists of each paragraph’s topic sentence . By going through the outline, you are able to examine what purpose each paragraph serves. If you need assistance on how to create an outline for a college essay about friendship use the outline example shown below.

4. Write an Essay on Friendship

Writing an essay about friendship is an exciting task. Below is a sample of how you can write your friendship essay. Friendship is the bond between two or more individuals based on mutual trust, support, and understanding. This connection can develop at any stage of life and even last a lifetime. It is a bond that fills our lives with comfort, laughter, and advice during a hard period. Many different factors can contribute to its formation and success. Having similar needs, mutual interests, and social activities can help sustain the relationship. Another crucial aspect is being ready to support each other through happy and difficult times unconditionally. Trust is also an essential component in the longevity of this connection. In conclusion, friendship is an invaluable treasure that brings joy, comfort, and support to our lives. It provides a safe place in a world that can be harsh and unforgiving. It reminds us that we should always stay true to each other.

5. Proofread Your Friendship Essay

When writing a friendship essay, consider the following for an effective introduction.

• Grab your reader's attention. A good introduction makes them want to continue reading your friendship essay.
• Provide context. Give an overview of the friendship essay and its purpose. This will make readers interested in your work.
• Establish your purpose. Clearly state the main idea or thesis.
• Preview the main points. Briefly summarize key points that will be covered.
• Be concise. An introduction should be short and on point, generally no more than one or two paragraphs.

Remember, your introduction will set tone for the rest of your piece and should encourage your readers to continue reading.

Read more: Essay About Happiness : Tips & Examples

Friendship Essay Examples

A sample essay about friendship can be critical to students, especially when they are researching and collecting information. Free friendship essays help you get ideas on how to write and structure your essay. Below are essay examples about friendship that you can go through to help with your writing and draw inspiration from. Friendship essay example 1

Friendship essay example 2

Essay about friendship sample 3

Example of essay on friendship 4

Friendship Essay Writing Tips

Here are some extra tips you need to know that will motivate you to write a friendship short essay.

• You could start with a quote, an anecdote, or a surprising fact.
• Use examples from your own life to illustrate your points in your school college essay about friendship, as this will make your essay more relatable and interesting to read.
• Friendship titles for essays should be clear and straightforward. They should also reflect your main points.
• Describe the aspect of the bond that, in your opinion, is most crucial. It is possible to personalize something that means an entirely different thing to various individuals.

Bottom Line on Friendship Essay Writing

Your central task is to understand what is a friendship essay even before you start writing. Friendship essays explore the nature of our relationships and their various aspects. They can take various forms, from short reflective essays to longer, more analytical pieces. These papers can discuss qualities that make a good friend, the benefits of your relationship, or challenges of maintaining close relationships. Examples of short essays about friendship could be a personal reflection, exploring the unique bond between the writer and their friend and what they hope to continue gaining from each other when they cross paths in future. If you struggle with other papers, feel free to check out our writing guides. From an essay about bullying to a world peace essay , we’ve got you covered.

FAQ About Friendship Essay

1. may i use friendship quotes for the essay.

Yes, it is always a winning step. You can write an essay on friendship with quotes either as the title of your essay or as an introductory phrase. You can also include it in the body of your work while narrating your story.

2. How to write a hook for an essay of friendship?

An essay should hook your reader's attention and make them want to read your story. When writing essays about friendship, you can describe a unique situation in which your friends helped you. You can also end your introduction with a catchy quote, such as Squad goals! Some other quotes that you can use include:

• A road to a friend's house is never long.
• Count your age with friends and years.
• True friend is seen through the heart, not through the eyes.

3. Explain the importance of friendship essay.

The importance of friendship essay is that it teaches students to express their thoughts and feelings about confidants and benefits they obtain from this connection. It also acts as a reflective tool. Friend essays also help students realize advantages of creating and maintaining good relationships with friends and how these linkages contribute to your overall wellness and welfare.

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

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Aristotle On the 3 Types of Friendship (and How Each Enriches Life)

There is not one type of friendship, Aristotle argues, but three. The highest type — the friendship of virtue — contributes most to our pursuit of the good life; but it is difficult to cultivate, and we may only achieve it a few times (if at all) in our lifetimes.

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W hat does the good life look like for human beings? What does happiness mean, and how can we achieve it? What does virtue mean, and how can we exhibit it?

The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle outlines his monumentally influential answers to these questions in his Nicomachean Ethics , his most studied work on ethics, which was written around 350 BCE (and features in our list of Aristotle’s best books ).

Ultimately, Aristotle thinks the good life boils down to one thing: achieving eudaimonia , which is variously translated from Greek as ‘well-being’, ‘happiness’, ‘blessedness’, and in the context of the virtue ethics Aristotle endorsed, ‘human flourishing’.

The way we can achieve eudaimonia , Aristotle argues, is by habitually striving for excellence in all that we do.

In other words, happiness means excellent activity (and typically involves, Aristotle suggests, establishing a happy medium between excess and deficiency in our behavior and character, a recommendation we cover in more detail in our explainer on Aristotle’s ‘golden mean’ ).

Born in 384 BC in Northern Greece, Aristotle joined Plato’s Academy in Athens when he was approximately 17 years old, quickly becoming Plato’s most brilliant student. He studied under Plato until the latter’s death 20 years later, whereupon Aristotle left Athens and became tutor to a young Alexander the Great. Transforming most of the subjects he investigated ― from metaphysics and ethics to politics and biology ― Aristotle is considered to be one of the most signficant figures in the history of Western philosophy.

While regulating our individual behavior to achieve excellence is perhaps the main ingredient in Aristotle’s recipe for happiness, he acknowledges that the good life wouldn’t mean as much without friendship. He writes in the Nicomachean Ethics :

We consider a friend to be one of the greatest of all good things, and friendlessness and solitude a very terrible thing, because the whole of life and voluntary interactions are with loved ones.

The importance of friendship: Aristotle

O f the Nicomachean Ethics ’s ten sections, Aristotle dedicates two of them to friendship, perhaps indicating its importance in his vision of the good life. “Friendship is one of the most indispensable requirements of life,” he writes:

For no one would choose to live without friends but in possession of everything else that is good. Friends are of help to the young by protecting them from mistakes; to the elderly by looking after them and making up for their failing powers of action; to those in the prime of life, to help them in doing good things.

So important is friendship, Aristotle declares, that it may even trump justice when it comes promoting the good life for all:

When men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.

The 3 levels of friendship

I n his detailed analysis of friendship, Aristotle discusses its nature, principles, cultivation, how it contributes to the good life, when it is right to break off a friendship, and the part friendship plays in (and its resemblance to) various forms of political system.

One of his most enduring contributions to philosophical discussions on friendship is his distinction between its three kinds or levels. He prefaces this by stating:

Those who think there is only one [kind of friendship] because it admits of degrees have relied on an inadequate indication; for even things different in species admit of degree.

He then identifies the following ‘species’ of friendship:

• The friendship of utility . These friendships are based on what someone can do for you, or what you can do for another person. It might be that you put in a good word for someone, and they buy you a gift in return. Such relationships have little to do with character, and can end as soon as any possible use for you or the other person is removed from the equation.
• The friendship of pleasure . These are friendships based on enjoyment of a shared activity or the pursuit of fleeting pleasures and emotions. This might be someone you go for drinks with, or join a particular hobby with, and is a common level of association among the young, so Aristotle declared. This type of relationship can again end quickly, dependent as it is on people’s ever-changing likes and dislikes.
• The friendship of virtue . These are the people you like for themselves, who typically influence you positively and push you to be a better person. This kind of relationship, based as it is on the character of two self-sufficient equals, is a lot more stable than the previous two categories.

Unsurprisingly, it is this final level — the friendship of virtue — that Aristotle lauds. While friendships of utility and pleasure have their place, it is the rare yet pure friendships of virtue that are the greatest contributors to the good life.

The requirements for close friendship

V irtuous friendship takes time — indeed, the length of a relationship indicates its stability — and requires effort on both sides.

“For perfect friendship you must get to know someone thoroughly,” Aristotle says, “and become intimate with them, which is a very difficult thing to do.” It involves honesty, acceptance, and selflessness. It is two equal parties coming together to forge a bond that provides mutual benefit, enjoyment, and appreciation over the course of a lifetime.

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Aristotle thinks loving is more the essence of close friendship than being loved . To illustrate this, he compares the love we feel for close friends to that a mother feels for her child, reflecting on the “delight mothers take in loving”:

for some mothers hand over their children to be brought up, and so long as they know their fate they love them and do not seek to be loved in return (if they cannot have both), but seem to be satisfied if they seem them prospering; and they themselves love their children even if these owing to their ignorance them them nothing of a mother’s due.

Aristotle then connects this kind of selfless love — wishing the best for someone else for their sake — to the best kinds of friendship, writing:

Now since friendship depends more on loving, and it is those who love their friends that are praised, loving seems to be the characteristic virtue of friends, so that it is only those in whom this is found in due measure that are lasting friends, and only their friendship that endures.

Aristotle does not limit the formation of such friendships to non-relations; they can take place between spouses and family members, too — though he does add some qualifications for relationships that include inequalities, such as the parent-child relationship (suggesting such imbalances should be taken into consideration when reviewing the contributions of each party).

His one strict limitation is the number of virtuous friendships you can maintain. “To be a friend to many people in the way of perfect friendship is impossible,” he warns:

it is difficult to share intimately in the joys and sorrows of many people; for one may very likely be called upon to rejoice with one and to mourn with another at the same time.

It would be surprising if anyone could manage more than, say, five of such intensive relationships, meaning some close friends and even family members may be relegated to friendships of pleasure or even utility. So, choose your close friends wisely, and cultivate them virtuously.

Friendship and the good life

A ristotle’s account of friendship underscores his view that excellent activity is central to a life well-lived, the highest good, and the most accurate definition of happiness.

In forming relationships, he urges us to go beyond utility and pleasure and seek to fulfill our human potential by connecting with others in the most sincere, meaningful, and prosperous way possible: by cultivating mutual love.

For mutually loving relationships — those in which two people strive to be the best they can be to each other and themselves — are not just key sources of happiness, Aristotle judges, but among the pinnacles of human achievement.

(Contrast this with Schopenhauer, who with his porcupine dilemma suggests solitude is a better match for achievement than companionship.)

So a life of excellent activity, bolstered by excellent relationships, is very much a recipe for happiness for Aristotle.

Learn more about Aristotle’s vision of the good life

W hat do you make of Aristotle’s analysis of friendship? Do you agree with the distinctions he makes? And what characteristics do the best relationships in your life exhibit?

If you’re looking to delve deeper into Aristotle’s teachings, you might enjoy our article on the ‘golden mean’, Aristotle’s guide to living excellently , as well as our quick explainer on why Aristotle thinks leisure defines us more than work .

You can also further explore Aristotle’s ethics and discuss your thoughts with others in our new course and community, How to Live a Good Life , which explores 7 of the world’s most influential philosophies for living — including Aristotelianism, Buddhism, and Existentialism. If you’re interested, consider learning more here: How to Live a Good Life (According to 7 of the World’s Wisest Philosophies) .

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Aristotle on Friendship: What Does It Take to Be a Good Friend?

Author: G. M. Trujillo, Jr. Category: Ethics , Historical Philosophy Wordcount: 992

Imagine that you could choose between living two lives. Option 1 promises amazing beauty, wealth, power, fame, and health. But you would have zero friends. Option 2 offers only average beauty, wealth, reputation, and health. But you would have profound friendships.

Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) bet that no one would choose the first option. [1] He argued that we need friends to live a good life. After all, when life is bad, they help us. And when life is good, they celebrate with us. [2]

Aristotle’s claims about friendship began debates that continue today. [3] This essay presents his views on friendship and a contemporary debate he inspired.

1. Friendship, Useful Friends, and Pleasurable Friends

For Aristotle, all friendships are relationships where people mutually like each other, do good for one another, and share goals for the time they spend together. [4] But the friendship changes depending on the reasons that friends value each other and the ways that they do good for each other.

Consequently, Aristotle split friendship into three types. The first two types—useful and pleasurable friendships—are similar to each other.

Useful friendships are those between people whose foremost goal is to work together to accomplish some practical goal. Think coworkers or teammates.

Pleasurable friendships are those between people who routinely enjoy themselves together. Think friends who you invite to meals or nights out, or those you play games with. [5]

Useful and pleasurable friendships have upsides. They are casual and easy to form, as they are defined by their small-scale goals. Useful friends focus on getting things done, and pleasurable friends focus on enjoying each other’s company. The basis for these friendships, and the reason behind the mutual affection and planning, is simple use or pleasure.

But these friendships also have downsides. As soon as the task or fun disappears, so do these friendships. Consider what often happens to friendships with your coworkers when you leave your job, or what usually happens with most of your teammates when you quit playing a sport. Useful and pleasurable friendships are mostly motivated by what people can get out of them. This is why Aristotle deemed them as imperfect compared to the last type.

2. Virtuous Friends, the Best Friends

For Aristotle, the best friendships have a deeper meaning than utility or pleasure: becoming better people together. They are rare and hard to form. But they are the most important for living a good life. [6] Aristotle called these virtuous friendships .

Virtuous friends not only focus on getting things done or having a good time together. Rather, they primarily focus on each other as persons , attending to character and flourishing. They want their friends to be good people and live good lives for their own sake . And they work together to accomplish this. [7]

Virtuous friends become a part of each other’s lives by spending time together and having deep conversations. They share the same core ideas about what it means to be a good person and live a good life. [8] Aristotle argued that this deep bond makes virtuous friends “other selves,” or, “One soul dwelling in two bodies.” [9] Together, virtuous friends live, learn, struggle, and improve.

Living a full life is difficult. Not only do we need to become good as individuals, but also as family members, citizens, and contributors to our communities. And we need to avoid the common dangers of pursuing money above all things, caring too much about what strangers think, and losing ourselves in hobbies or addictions. Virtuous friends help with this. In success, friends celebrate. In failure, friends offer comfort and counsel, and sometimes they speak hard truths that only people who know and love you can. [10]

3. Do Good Friends Have to Be Good People?

When philosophers discuss friendship, they usually have Aristotle’s virtuous friendship in mind. Implicitly, it is taken as the most important type of friendship to scrutinize. Specifically, some philosophers debate whether immoral actions or bad people corrupt the quality of friendships. [11]

Imagine that your phone wakes you up late at night. It’s your best friend. She says it’s an emergency, and she needs your help. So you rush to the address she gave you. Then she reveals that she’s murdered someone. She asks you to help hide the body. But now you wonder: would a good friend help to hide the corpse, or would she encourage her friend to explain the situation to the authorities? [12]

This case raises some related questions: is being a good friend compatible with doing immoral things together? Can bad people really be good friends? And generally, are the good things about friendship also things that we should judge by moral standards?

Aristotle and Aristotelians argue that good friends must be ethically good people. Virtuous friends largely share the same values and help each other become excellent—and they hold each other accountable. Such explicitly ethical goals make immorality incompatible with deep friendship. So, in this scenario, Aristotelians would say that your friend who calls you to ask for help hiding a corpse is no longer a good friend. This request changes the friendship fundamentally for the worse. [13]

Non-Aristotelians disagree. They argue that the qualities that we appreciate in friendship are separate from complying with moral principles. Good friends share interests and are loyal to each other. And this is compatible with sometimes doing immoral things. A moral failure does not mean a failure in friendship. In fact, helping your friend in morally dubious circumstances might indicate that you are a real friend. [14]

4. Conclusion

Philosophers might disagree with Aristotle about how to define friendship or who can be a good friend. However, most agree that we must analyze our own ideas about what it means to be a good friend and whether we live up to them. Friendships reveal important things about who we are and how we love. And if, as Aristotle argued, good friends make us better and bad friends make us worse, our friendships could make or break us. [15]

[1] Aristotle wrote, “For no one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all other good things” (2020, NE 1155a5-6). Aristotle’s greatest work, Nicomachean Ethics , dedicated two of its ten books to friendship, Books VIII and IX. And they have largely set the philosophical agenda for discussing friendship. Often, even philosophers who disagree with Aristotle start by summarizing his views. As far as philosophers and poets who came before Aristotle, none produced a definitive theory of friendship. For example, Plato’s Lysis discusses friendship. But as with many Socratic dialogues, there is no conclusive definition or view. However, for an argument that Greek philosophers before Aristotle had a theory of friendship, see: El Murr 2020.

Throughout, this essay will translate Aristotle’s Greek word philos as “friend” and philia as “friendship.” This is the most accessible way to render the Greek in English, and it captures the idea of being committed to someone in a specific context. The hope is that this broadens the terms outside of excessively specified roles in Greek society but doesn’t make friendship into a contemporary notion of abstract regard for others without context. However, a few things need clarification. First, the Greek philia refers to more types of relationships than the English “friendship.” Philia refers to friendship, but also the relationship between family members, spouses, lovers, members of a political community, or patrons and clients. Second, philia describes relationships with widely varying qualities. Some are deep with knowledge, emotion, and well-wishing; some are shallow and casual. Philia can be long-term and durable or transitory and quick to vanish. Philia encompasses voluntary associations replete with choice, as in choosing your friends or confidants, but it can also include unchosen associations, such as family. Philia can be sexual and desirous, or it can be friendly and cool. Third, philia can be translated as “love.” But in the context of relationships with others, many Greek words might also be translated as “love.” Storgē means love, often within familial contexts or within the context of affection. Eros means love, often with romantic implications. And not as much a concern for ancient Greece, but important to mention because Christian philosophers make use of the term, agapē gets rendered as love, usually within the context of God loving creation, or selfless love. These complex associations lead some philosophers to leave terms untranslated and merely transliterate them into the English alphabet, e.g., change φιλία to philia (see: Nussbaum 2009). This essay, however, opts for translation, hoping that the context of this discussion about friendship removes ambiguities. But serious scholarship about Aristotle’s theory of friendship attends to the details of the original Greek. For more discussion on translation, see: Annas 1993, pp. 223-4; Nussbaum 2009, p. 354; Cooper 1999a, p. 313, no. 5.

[2] Aristotle, NE , 1171b28. Aristotle himself had powerful friends. His teacher was Plato, and his student was Alexander the Great. He also had powerful enemies who drove him into exile, where he died. There is a famous saying regarding Aristotle’s death. Aristotle was living in Athens and running his school, The Lyceum. But politics in Athens shifted against Aristotle’s home city-state of Macedonia and against the rulers who Aristotle associated with, Phillip II and Alexander the Great. Aristotle feared that Athens would try to do the same thing to him that they did to Socrates, hold a mockery of a trial and sentence him to death. Aristotle apocryphally said, “I will not let Athens sin twice against philosophy,” and he took exile in Chalcis, where he died. See: Diogenes Laertius, 2018, V.5-6, 10; Shields 2020, sec. 1, esp. n. 3; Nussbaum 2009, p. 345, n. 8.

[3] For many historical examples of philosophers celebrating and analyzing friendship, see: Pakaluk 1991. For the rare exceptions of historical philosophers who criticize friendship, see: Trujillo 2020.

It is also important to note that this small article cannot go into all the issues Aristotle covered when discussing friendship. For example, there is arguably a fourth type of friendship, civic friendship, that describes people living in a political community together. (See: Cooper 1999b for an overview of Aristotle’s theory of civic friendship. See: Cherry 2021 for a debate between her and Robert Talisse about civic friendship and whether it can solve political polarization in the USA.) Additionally, Aristotle discusses matters of equality in money and power, arguing that good friends must be as equal as possible. Also, because Aristotle usually focuses on the best people possible, his work leaves open questions about what friendships look like for the rest of us, those morally imperfect and without all the wealth and power that Aristotle (or the people he had in mind) had. All these questions have become invaluable in the philosophy of technology, where people now use these distinctions to talk about social media, online friendships, robots, and friendships involving far-future technology. Aristotelians shape many conversations about the past, present, and future of friendship. (See: Elder 2018.)

[4] This essay takes a general stance with respect to the common features of useful, pleasurable, and virtuous friendships, especially as characterized by Aristotle in Rhetoric II.4: “We may describe friendly feeling towards anyone as wishing for him what you believe to be good things, not for your own sake but for his, and being inclined, so far as you can, to bring these things about. A friend is one who feels thus and excites these feelings in return. Those who think they feel thus towards each other think themselves friends.”

It is clear that, for Aristotle, some amount of reciprocity and recognition is necessary from each friend, as far as feelings about one another and what the friendship involves. This is why Aristotle says we cannot be friends with wine, no matter how much we like it. Wine just doesn’t love us back. ( NE 1155b27-31). But beyond these generalities, philosophers disagree.

Julia Annas, for example, offers her own interpretation of qualities Aristotle seems to endorse as belonging to all forms of friendship: (1) friends wish and do good for each other, (2) friends want their friends to stay alive for their own sake, (3) friends spend time with each other, (4) friends make similar choices, and (5) friends find similar things painful and pleasant. 1993, p. 254. Martha Nussbaum proposes that all friendships involve mutual affection, mutual separateness and respect for that independence, mutual well-wishing for the friend and for that friend’s own sake, and mutual awareness of the good feelings and wishes. 2009, p. 355.

In addition to deciding what is common in all forms of friendships, philosophers argue over what distinguishes the different types. For example, philosophers argue over the kind of affection and interest that friends take in each other in useful, pleasurable, and virtuous friendships. There is no doubt that virtuous friends are interested in their friends being good and doing well for their own sake. But philosophers disagree about whether such disinterested or non-self-interested motivation exists in useful or pleasurable friendships. John Cooper (1999a), for example, takes the position that all friendships involve a not-completely-self-interested motivation. But Kenneth Alpern (1983) thinks that useful and pleasurable friendships are not disinterested, even if they exhibit dependence, cooperation, trust, communion, and sharing. Aristotle is borderline incoherent on this point, sometimes writing that useful and pleasurable friends are self-centered, sometimes implying that all friendships share disinterested other-regarding concern. See: Cooper 1999a, p. 317.

[5] Aristotle, NE , VIII.3.

[6] Julia Annas summarizes Aristotle’s arguments for why virtuous friendships are necessary for living a good life. She identifies two reasons that are important to highlight. First, friends help you to learn about yourself. Virtuous friends share values, so their perspectives on each others’ lives are important. And because friends are outside of your life, they have an outside perspective that allows for accurate assessment. (Sometimes your friends know you better than you know yourself.) Second, friends can do more together than separately. When friends work together, they can sustain activities for a longer time, make activities much more pleasant, and make activities much more effective. 1993, p. 251.

[7] Aristotle, NE , 1170b11-14. In this passage, Aristotle emphasizes that friends share conversation and thought while living together. Sharing a human life together means more than “feeding in the same location as with grazing animals.” So, the quality of the shared time and the content of the actions matter, not just the hours logged. On the point of sharing the same values, see also: Rhet . II.4. Thanks go to Alexis Elder for emphasizing this point in her work.

[8] Aristotle, NE , VIII.3, 13; IX.5–6. See also: Diogenes Laertius (2018), V.31.

[9] For the “other selves” claim, see: Aristotle, NE , 1166a31. For the “One soul dwelling in two bodies,” see: Diogenes Laertius (2018), V.20. Aristotle argues that the deepest friendships are those between equals, in almost all respects. This is part of what makes virtuous friends “other selves.” For the most part, virtuous friends have the same values, the same strategies in approaching life, and maybe a lot of other similarities, such as economic class and political status. This means that when virtuous friends see each other living life, they understand what they’re doing and why, and they can counsel each other well. Additionally, because friends would do basically the same things as each other, they get to live somewhat vicariously. Aristotle’s works are rarely beautiful or poetic. But the phrasing of friends being “other selves” has inspired admiration of the phrase, leading to much philosophical reflection.

[10] See: Aristotle, NE , IX.11. On bitter times in friendship, Aristotle wrote, “[F]or as the proverb has it, people cannot have got to know each other before they have savored all that salt together, nor indeed can they have accepted each other to be friends before each party is seen to be lovable, and is trusted, by the other. Those who are quick to behave like friends towards each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they are also lovable, and the other party knows it; for what is quick to arise is wish for friendship, not friendship” (2002, NE , 1156b27-33). In other words, friends need to spend a lot of time together to get to know each other, which would include difficult times. This reveals how good a person is (so how loveable they are) and how deep the friendship is. Good people and good friendships endure the bad times; they go beyond mere well wishes.

It is also worth noting that Aristotle thought you could not be good friends with many people at once ( NE , 1158a11-2). Diogenes Laertius took this claim to an extreme when he reported that Aristotle said, “He who has friends has no true friend” (2018, V.21). In other words, having more than one serious friend means you are not serious friends with any one person. Diogenes Laertius, however, reports this hundreds of years after Aristotle died.

[11] For an overview of recent scholarship on friendship, see: Helm 2021 and Jeske 2023.

[12] This case is based on the film Death in Brunswick (1990), which is the primary example for Dean Cocking and Jeanette Kennett in their influential article “Friendship and Moral Danger” (2000).

[13] See: Aristotle, NE , IX.9-10; Elder 2013.

There is an added complication here that many philosophers do not address. Aristotle seems OK with friends being vulnerable around each other and doing things around each other that might not be proper in public. Friends feel comfortable around each other and trust one another, and sometimes they confide their own weaknesses in friends. So, the requirement that virtuous friends be good has small exceptions and doesn’t require moral perfection. See: Rhet . II.4.

Aristotle’s theory of friendship has political implications too. For Aristotle, humans are fundamentally political, in that they live in communities. And he argues that a community of good people who are friends with one another wouldn’t need justice or rules. People would inherently share things with one another and treat each other fairly. Inversely, Aristotle also argues that friendship is impossible under conditions of severe injustice. NE , VIII.1, 9, 11. See also: Cooper 1999b, p. 356. It is important to qualify this claim, however. Aristotle’s work on friendship seems only to extend to actual, day-to-day relationships, and not to people we don’t have relationships with, as in people living in distant communities. See: Annas 1993, p. 253. It is not really until the Cynics and Stoics that philosophers develop a sense of cosmopolitanism. For a discussion of cosmopolitanism, see: Moles 1996.

[14] See: Cocking and Kennett 2000.

[15] Aristotle, NE , IX.12. Thanks go out to Nathan Nobis, Dan Lowe, Chelsea Haramia, Kristin Seemuth Whaley, Spencer Case, and Felipe Pereira for their feedback. They improved the paper significantly.

Annas, Julia. (1993) The Morality of Happiness . New York: Oxford.

Alpern, Kenneth D. (1983) “Aristotle on the Friendships of Utility and Pleasure,” Journal of the History of Philosophy , vol. 21, no. 3: pp. 303-15.

Aristotle. (1991) Rhetoric [ Rhet .]. Trans. W. Rhys. Roberts. In: The Complete Works of Aristotle , Vol. 2, ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton.

Aristotle. (2002) Nicomachean Ethics [ NE ]. Trans. Christopher Rowe. Oxford: Oxford.

Cherry, Myisha. (2021). “On the Cultivation of Civic Friendship,” Journal of Philosophical Research , vol. 46: pp. 193-207.

Cocking, Dean and Jeanette Kennett. (2000) “Friendship and Moral Danger,” The Journal of Philosophy , vol. 97, no. 5: 278-96.

Cooper, John M. (1999a) “Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship.” In: Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory . Princeton: Princeton, ch. 14.

Cooper, John M. (1999b) “Political Animals and Civic Friendship.” In: Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and Ethical Theory . Princeton: Princeton, ch. 16.

Diogenes Laertius. (2018) Lives of the Eminent Philosophers . Trans. Pamela Mensch. Oxford: Oxford.

Death in Brunswick . (1990) Dir. John Ruane.

El Murr, Dimitri. (2020) “Friendship in Early Greek Ethics.” In: Early Greek Ethics , ed. David Conan Wolfsdorf. Oxford: Oxford. Ch. 24.

Elder, Alexis. (2013) “Why Bad People Can’t Be Good Friends,” Ratio , vol. 27, iss. 1: 84-99.

Elder, Alexis. (2018) Friendship, Robots, and Social Media: False Friends and Second Selves . New York: Routledge.

Helm, Bennett. (2021) “Friendship,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : plato.stanford.edu.

Jeske, Diane. (2023) The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Friendship . New York: Routledge.

Moles, John L. (1996) “Cynic Cosmopolitanism.” In: The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy , eds. R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé. Berkeley: California.

Nussbaum, Martha C. (2009) The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy . Updated Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge.

Pakaluk, Michael. (1991) Other Selves: Philosophers on Friendship . Indianapolis: Hackett.

Shields, Christopher. (2020) “Aristotle,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : plato.stanford.edu.

Trujillo, G.M. (2020) “Friendship for the Flawed: A Cynical and Pessimistic Theory of Friendship,” Southwest Philosophy Review , vol. 36, iss. 1: 199-209.

For Further Reading

Katz, Emily. (2023) “Three lessons from Aristotle on Friendship,” The Conversation .

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Expository Essay

Expository Essay About Friendship

Expository Essay About Friendship: A Writing Guide

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Going to write an expository essay about friendship?

Expository writing about friendship can be a complex and interesting task. It requires research and analysis to come up with the right content for your essay.

Expository essays allow us to look at topics from new perspectives. That is also why they are not easy to write.

To help you out, we’ve prepared this guide on how to write an expository essay about friendship. You'll also get example essays to read and take inspiration from.

So let's get into it!

• 1. Expository Essay Definition
• 2. How To Write Expository Essay About Friendship Step-by-Step
• 3. Expository Essay Examples on Friendship
• 4. Expository Essay Topics About Friendship

Expository Essay Definition

An expository essay  is a type of academic writing that seeks to explain or inform the reader about a particular topic. Expository essays typically provide readers with evidence, facts, and arguments related to the subject in question.

They are written using an objective tone, meaning they do not take sides or attempt to persuade the reader. Instead, they are simply providing information and allowing the reader to make their own conclusions.

An expository essay about friendship would attempt to discuss friendship from any perspective. It could discuss the different types of friendship or the different components that make up a strong bond.

Now, let’s move on to the first step – writing the essay!

How To Write Expository Essay About Friendship Step-by-Step

Having read the above examples and topic ideas, you now have a good idea of what a friendship essay is. But how do you write one yourself?

Follow these steps to write an excellent essay about friendship:

• Choose a topic

Start by deciding what type of essay you want to write, and choose a topic related to friendship that interests you. For example, you could write about the different types of friendships or how people become friends.

• Do research

Research is a crucial part of writing an expository essay. Look for reliable sources such as scholarly books, peer-reviewed journals, etc, that provide factual information about the topic. Make sure to keep track of which sources you used and take detailed notes on important points.

• Make an Outline

After researching, create an outline for expository essay  that will serve as a roadmap for your essay. Decide how you want to format the essay and which points you’ll be discussing. This is also the time to decide on a thesis statement and any subtopics you want to cover in your essay.

• Write Your First Draft

Now it’s time to start writing! Focus on each point in your outline and provide evidence, facts, and/or examples to back up your claims. Try to use a variety of sentence structures and don’t forget to proofread once you’re done.

• Revise Your Essay

Once you have completed the first draft of your essay, look for areas that can be improved and revise accordingly. While making revisions , make sure that your essay is well-structured, logically organized, and coherent from start to finish.

Let's check out some essay samples to gain a deeper understanding.

Expository Essay Examples on Friendship

Here are some essay examples about the topic of friendship. You can use these for inspiration when writing your own expository essay about friendship. 

Example of Short Essay About Friendship

Expository Essay About True Friendship

What is Friendship Essay 300 Words

Expository Essay About Friendship 1000 Words

Expository Essay About Friendship 500 Words

Want more examples? Have a look at these unique expository essay examples to get inspired!

Expository Essay Topics About Friendship

When it comes to writing an expository essay about friendship, you have plenty of options. 

Here are some topics that you can consider:

• How does a true friend help us cope with bad times?
• How has technology changed the way we form friendships?
• What roles do trust and communication play in a strong friendship?
• What is the role of dogs in fostering friendship
• Explore the friendship dynamics in relation to unique individuals
• Addressing bullying and its impact on friendship circles
• What is the importance of friendship?
• How do different cultural backgrounds affect the way we form and think about friendships?
• How can we define a good friend?

Remember to choose a topic that you are interested in exploring and one that resonates with your audience. This will help make your essay more engaging and interesting.

Need more topics to get started? Check out these creative expository essay topics on different themes!

To end the discussion,

Following these steps will make it easier to write an expository essay about friendship. Just remember to research as much as you can, stay organized, and don’t forget to proofread.

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Friendship Essay

500+ words essay on friendship.

Individuals come across numerous people throughout their life. Those who are near us become our companions. We may have a big group of companions in school and college, yet we realise that we can rely on only a few with whom we share genuine friendships. Here, we have provided an essay on friendship for students. By referring to this essay on friendship essay, students of Classes 5 to 8 can become familiar with essay writing skills. They can learn how to organise their thoughts in an effective way and put them in words. This essay will work as a sample for them. Practising Essays on different topics will enhance their writing skills and thus help them to score high marks in English exams.

We have different types of relationships with people around us. With a few of them, we share a blood bond, such as with our family and with others, we forge our own connections. Friendship is one such relationship which we choose by ourselves. God has given us this liberty to choose friends because they are, in most instances, for a lifetime. A friend is someone who is initially a stranger and then takes his/her place above all other relationships. Friendship is considered one of the treasures that anyone can have.

Friendship can exist between people, regardless of their age and gender. It can even happen between an old man and a small boy. Friendship can also exist between humans and their pet animals. Moreover, it can also be felt in familial relationships such as between father and son, mother and daughter etc. A simple bond of friendship can help uproot various prejudices and negative thoughts from society, such as religious conflict, violence, human rights abuse, poverty, illiteracy, etc. Friendship can generate passion among people to create a better world where all are united together.

Role of a Friend

Friends are an integral part of our life. To develop a strong, true friendship, we should treat friends with love and respect the way we would expect them to treat us. In this way, the friendship will last longer. Some of the ways that define the role of friendship in achieving success are:

• Encouraging and motivating
• Creating a comfort zone
• Listening to each other and providing truthful opinions
• Adding joy to life
• Sharing secrets and being reliable
• Caring and unconditional love
• Helping to grow individually

Best Qualities of a Good Friendship

There is a famous proverb, “A friend in need is a friend indeed”. It means that though we may have several friends at the time of prosperity, many desert us at the time of adversity. We can examine the sincerity of a friend during our hard times. Only a sincere and faithful friend remains with us in times of trouble. All others abandon us.

Friendship is established over the sacrifice, love, faith, and concern of each other. Below we have mentioned some qualities that exist in a good friendship:

• Honest and trustworthy
• Accepting and loyal
• Non-judgemental
• Inspiring and motivating
• Helpful and generous

Famous Examples of Friendship in Indian Mythology

In Indian Mythology, we can find various examples of true friendship. All of us have heard the story of Krishna and Sudama. Sudama was a poor brahmin. His condition became so impoverished that he could not afford food for his family. Then he decided to go to Dwarka to meet his childhood friend Krishna. When he reached Dwarka, he requested the gatekeeper to let him meet with Krishna. As he was dressed dirty, the gatekeeper did not allow him to enter. But, he requested several times and asked the gatekeeper to inform Krishna that his childhood friend was there to meet him. Finally, the gatekeeper showed mercy on him and sent the message to Krishna. On hearing the news of Sudama’s arrival, Krishna came running and welcomed him with an open heart. He also helped him financially by giving him plenty of wealth.

Similarly, there are various stories of friendship described in Indian Mythology. A few of them are the friendship of Karna and Duryodhana, Ram and Sugreeva, Krishna and Arjun.

Essays Topics for Students’ Practice

After writing an essay on friendship, students must practise essays on similar topics. To help them with this, we have provided a few essay topics as suggestions:

• Friendship Day Essay
• Essay on My Best Friend
• Essay on Memories of My Childhood Friends
• Essay on the Importance of True Friendship

Frequently Asked Questions on Friendship

Who is a true friend.

A true friend is one who stands for you and is always ready to help you. He/she understands you and values your feelings. Whose company makes you feel happy, and you can share your thoughts and emotions without any hesitation or fear?

Why do we need friends in our life?

Friends bring happiness into our life. They help in solving problems, whether personal or professional. By talking to them, our stress reduces, and we feel better. Friends improve our self-confidence and help us to find purpose in our life. They offer companionship and thus prevent loneliness.

When is Friendship Day celebrated?

Each year on the first Sunday of August, Friendship Day is celebrated in India.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Friendship — My Experience In Friendship

My Experience in Friendship

• Categories: Admired Person Friendship

About this sample

Words: 714 |

Published: Nov 8, 2019

Words: 714 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Having a best friend

Works cited:.

• Smith, Zadie. "Find Your Beach." The New York Review of Books, 26 Nov. 2020. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/11/26/zadie-smith-find-your-beach/
• Whitehead, Colson. "City Limits." The New Yorker, 16 Aug. 1999. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/08/16/city-limits
• Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. HarperCollins, 1990.
• Diener, Ed, and Robert Biswas-Diener. Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
• Fredrickson, Barbara L. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive. Crown Publishers, 2009.
• Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. Vintage, 2006.
• Haidt, Jonathan. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Basic Books, 2006.
• Kashdan, Todd B., and Robert Biswas-Diener. The Upside of Your Dark Side: Why Being Your Whole Self - Not Just Your "Good" Self - Drives Success and Fulfillment. Hudson Street Press, 2014.
• Seligman, Martin E. P. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. Free Press, 2002.
• Snyder, C. R., and Shane J. Lopez. Handbook of Positive Psychology. Oxford University Press, 2005.

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