What is friendship? It will be rather difficult to limit ourselves to a concise presentation, for a huge number of books have been written on the topic mentioned. But if it is impossible to write “War and Peace” in scope, then we will focus on the main parameters of friendship, and then we will make a short conclusion.
A friend is a relative whom we ourselves choose
What is friendship? A concise statement should begin with the fact that friendship is a person’s personal choice. It would seem that everything is clear, in any case there is a strong-willed decision. No, sometimes we communicate with people because for some reason we need them. Such relationships are also called “bonds.” For example, a person works with someone, and a colleague can help him go to the theater for free. So he keeps such a “necessary acquaintance” in his field of vision.
Friendship, as a rule, does not happen. It’s nice to spend time with a friend, your values and interests coincide with him, you seem to look at the world and things in it. A friend is like a relative, only better, because we choose friends ourselves. Moreover, the appearance of a friend is sometimes not covered by some special signal, sometimes people who initially seem different become friends. In other words, the ways of friendship are inscrutable. Something like this can answer the question of what friendship is.
A concise presentation greatly limits, but the main ideas can be formulated. Next, we consider the meaning of the noun in the explanatory dictionary and the essence of the phenomenon. How is it that we make friends?
The essence of the phenomenon
If you need just a lapidary definition, then it is best to use a proven source - an explanatory dictionary. It contains the following: "Close relations based on mutual trust, affection, common interests." Yes, it’s better to formulate, perhaps, it is impossible to answer the question of what friendship is. A concise statement, however, sins with dryness. It is one thing to say, to give a definition, and another to reveal what is behind trust, affection and common interests.
A person is known in communication and actions. Talking and exchanging outlooks on life is the first stage in the formation of friendly attachment. If this line is successfully overcome, then real friendship awaits confirmation by action, and then only grows stronger. Sometimes people stop on friendly relations and no one worries about this state of affairs. However, friendships are deeper, a friend can be told something that outsiders should not know. Of course, friendship, like any enterprise, is risky. It happens that friends betray, deceive, but this does not devalue friendship as such. In addition, the soul still requires a twin, and a person is looking for someone who could understand him. If a friend does not understand, then he loses his main quality.
Understanding is the basis of friendship
Friendship consists of two main elements:
- Free choice.
- Mutual self-disclosure.
Of course, these stages are global. And detailing self-disclosure may take more than one hundred pages. But if we talk about a concise exposition on the topic of friendship, then the self-disclosure of two people comes down to the fact that they recognize in each other a kindred spirit. If you decipher this poetic phrase, then we can say that people crave understanding.
Friendship is a search for understanding, and then acceptance. If a friend simply accepts you, but does not understand, then the level of psychological comfort is an order of magnitude lower than desired. In conclusion, we can say that true friendship is a true understanding of one person by another.