Friendship is a social insurance against life threats. We all need some kind of insurance. Reason why we almost all have friends, including psychopaths!
A friend would be there for you, when you are unable to help yourself. He is doing that because he loves you, but more important he is investing in the expectation of a similar empathy and solidarity from you when in similar situation.
Friendships break when one party feels the other failed to fulfill the subscribed insurance or thinks the other party is no more in capacity to help in case of need.
Don’t take it bad. Friendship is not free.
Reason why rich people are only friends with other rich people. Poor people could not be friend with rich people, unless the poor man has a wisdom the rich or powerful appreciate. Or they want a pet friend, like dogs are the best friend of humans, supposedly.
Is friendship unconditional?
In theory yes. In practice, no.
unspoken expectations like getting each other back than anyone else could do for us is often a condition.
Friendship could be based on:
– shared pleasure of doing similar things and expectations of keeping that pleasure going
– financial deals: success doing financial deals constantly and expectations to continue getting successful doing so
– emotional support trade: parties empathize and support each other so deeply and expectations that mutual peer support would continue
– intellectual alignment: we share same ideas and have lot of intellectual stimulation when around each other
– shared memory : we went through similar stories and have so much in common that we understand each other in ways that heal or delight us continually
– common enemy: we hate so much the same things or people that we feel good hating together, we hope continuing hating together
– bonded fate: our fate are so bonded that we have a ground to share and we wish to share the trip in peace or harmlessly.
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You don’t need a lot of friends. Two to three close friends plus 15 extended Friends are enough for a fulfilled friendship.
As for me, I have mainly long term friends. People I have been close to over decades.
What is your friendship based on?