Friendship

Properties of Friendship

A good deal has been written about the character of friendship. Frequently this writing focuses on a particular form of friendship—“true” or “real” friendship. Sometimes taking classical Greek philosophy as a starting point, such literature explores the moral basis of strong, virtually inalienable, friendship, in the process exalting the benefits that those involved derive from such associations. While this form of friendship is often idealized as the apogee of friendship, from a sociological perspective it should not be seen as a blueprint for friendship—or at least not as the sole blueprint. Ties of amity can take many forms, with the structural characteristics of the society in general and people's social location in particular shaping the manner in which they are patterned, as well as the opportunities different people have for involvement in friendships.

Thus friendship should not be seen as a universal relationship but as a culturally variable one. One difficulty, of course, is that the meaning of friendship is broad and imprecise, certainly as applied within contemporary Western societies. Sometimes, as in discussions of “true” friendship, it refers to a highly significant form of relational solidarity; at other times it has a much wider reference, being almost any tie of voluntary sociability. Moreover, people use the term friend in a number of different ways depending on context. To complicate matters further, there are alternative terms to friend that at times carry their own distinct connotations: mate, pal, or buddy, for example.

While recognizing that different forms of friendship exist, it is nonetheless possible to identify some key elements generic to contemporary friendship. The focus here will be on just three, the first two of which can be further subdivided.