It is easy to measure friendship today. Simply count the number of “friends” you have on Facebook and subtract the number of people who “unfriended” you. Multiply this number by the number of followers you have and divide by the number of people you are following. This number or index will accurately tell you the number of friends you have in the whole wide world. If you are not good with math and numbers, then simply call up each of your “friends” and see who will lend you a hundred dollars. Another quick and easy solution to see how many friends you have is to count the number of your “friends” who bring you some chicken soup when you are home in bed with the flu.
The subject of friendship has been written about since writing first began. An advantage of friendship and perhaps one of its most enduring qualities is that you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your mother, father, aunts, uncles or other relatives. While “blood” may be thicker than water, actual counts show as many dysfunctional families as dysfunctional friendships. (An observation extrapolated from my 67 years of experience as a relative and friend.) Another advantage of friendship is that people seem to have more concern about being a good friend than they do about being a good relative. To test this latter point, I went to Amazon.com and typed in “friendship.” I found 57,722 books on the subject. Next, I typed in “relatives.” I found only 20, 930.
Since this experiment did not seem very definitive I also tried the following. I went to Google and typed in: “How to be a better friend?” I found 1,470,000 hits on this subject. Then I went back and typed in “How to be a better relative?” I used the quotes to frame both questions.
Here is what you will get:
No results found for “How to be a better relative?”. Did you mean: “How to be a better realtor?”
So there you have the second major or perhaps the third major advantage of friendship. Namely that people care about being a good friend but no one cares about being a good “relative.” You are just supposed to love your relatives and that’s it. End of subject. “I love you brother.” “I love you sister.” “I love you Dad.” “I love you Mom” are words taken for granted. Your friends might regularly invite you over for meals and never say “I love you.” However, your relatives may never invite you over for a meal, but they will not hesitate to say: “I love you.” I guess love should be the subject of another blog since the love of relatives seems to be something that needs better defining.
However, to return to the subject of friendship, let’s look at Aristotle’s three types of friends. I will refer you to Amazon for more works on friendship. Anyone reading all 57,722 books will receive a certificate as a bona fide “Friendship Expert.” Simply mail me the ISBN number of all the books you have read or rip off the back cover and send them to me. I will mail your certificate ASAP.
Aristotle identified three types of friends. I would like to compare Aristotle’s ideas on friendship to my ideas on friendship. I wrote on the subject about thirty-five years ago and it was my first piece of paid writing. It appeared in a Men’s Journal somewhere on the West Coast. I regret I cashed the check as it would have been a nice souvenir and it was only for twenty dollars. However, I was in graduate school at the time and twenty dollars seemed like a lot of money back then. The title of my article was called: “Male Friendship and the Three Types of Intimacy”. I will return to my theories later, however, let’s start with Aristotle since I give him a head start on the subject and much greater profundity.
Aristotle’s ideas on friendship were part of his larger work The Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle divided friendships into three types based on the motive for forming them. These three types were: Friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of the good.
“Friendships of utility” describe encounters with others that are very commercial or practical. There is no love or intimacy exchanged in such relationships and they are simply based on a quid pro quo type of arrangement. For some, these types of friends would better be called acquaintances but I think acquaintances lack the level of commitment that is sometimes necessary in “friendships of utility.” Many of the people we work with, have business transactions with or even network with on LinkedIn would fit into this category. Such relationships are not very intimate but they can engender a certain depth of emotional attachment.
Aristotle’s “friendships of pleasure” include those individuals who we enjoy being around or spending time with. These are people we like because they are fun to be with or they make us feel good or they bring some level of excitement to our lives. Many of these types of friendships involve some type of shared activity. You might be on the same bowling team, church council, or simply hang around in a bar or coffee shop together. The intimacy involved in this type of friendship is deeper than in “friendships of utility” but it is often is limited to the activity that is being jointly pursued. Once the activity ends, often the friends go separate ways. Such friendships may end unless there is some other reason to create a bond or another reason to interact together.
Aristotle’s third and deepest friendship is the “friendship of the good.” Such a friendship is based on the enjoyment of the other person for some “good” or character trait that the person exhibits and which you find compelling or attractive. You like the person not for what they can do for you but because of who they are. According to Aristotle, these are the enduring type of friendships since they are not based on utility or shared activities but on a mutual liking or affection between the friends. As long as the character traits enjoyed by each friend do not change, the friendship will continue.
While I find Aristotle’s three types of friendship interesting, I do not think they go far enough or deep enough to define friendship. I think he comes closest to my idea of friendship with his “friendship of the good” but even that does not go far enough. The major fault I have with Aristotle is that he misses what I think is the key ingredient of friendship, namely intimacy. A friendship must involve intimacy or it is not a friendship. Intimacy is the key ingredient for all “true friendships.”
Intimacy:
1. the state of being intimate.
2. a close, familiar, and affectionate personal relationship.
3. a close association with or deep understanding of a place, subject, etc.
4. an act or expression serving as a token of familiarity or affection: the intimacy of using first names.
5. sexual liberty.
6. privacy, esp. as suitable to the telling of a secret: in the intimacy of his studio.
I believe there are three types of intimacy upon which a friendship can be founded. I do not include sexual intimacy here since for the most part, I am describing “non-sexual” relationships. Relationships between lovers usually involve sexual intimacy but they do not have to include much if any of the three types of intimacy that I think are a key to a good friendship. It would be a better relationship if they did. You will note though that it is frequently hard for ex-lovers to remain friends because once the sex part ends there is often little of the intimacy necessary for true friendship.
I have labeled the three types of intimacy as:
- Face to face
- Side to side
- Back to back
Face to face intimacy is more emotional and affective and generally involves two people sharing feelings, problems, emotions, and issues that they would not discuss with anyone else. Women are typically considered to be very good a face to face intimacy. You can find women sitting together over coffee discussing any number of emotional issues. Dealing with personal subjects with another party is central to face to face intimacy. No gender has a monopoly on this type of intimacy but in the past, men were brought up to avoid dealing with emotions making such intimacy very difficult.
Side to side intimacy is doing and conative. It is active and involves sharing some physical activity with the other party. This could be working together, playing sports together, helping each other with some tasks or chores or simply taking a walk together. This is an area where men in the past found much of their intimacy with other men. Sports and another side to side activities were more condoned for men than sitting exchanging emotions together. Time has changed and women are now as active in many sports as are men and we increasingly see men spending time with other men talking and sharing feelings.
Back to back intimacy involves a willingness to share risk or face a threat for the other person. Soldiers develop strong friendships because of their need to rely on each other. Police also develop strong friendships with their partners because of the element of shared risk and the strong need to rely on each other during emergencies and threats. Any individuals that help each other during emergencies or dangerous situations can experience the type of intimacy that I call back to back intimacy. (Just as an aside, I used this phrase before the term “I got your back” became popular but the current phrase does express the essence of this type of intimacy.)
A friendship may involve one, two or all three of these types of intimacy. They are not all required for a good friendship. A friendship based on only one of these types of intimacy can be very strong and profound. However, all things being equal, a friendship based on two or three of the types of intimacy will be stronger than one based on a single type. The caveat here is that when the intimacy no longer exists, there is a good chance that the friendship will fade away or become only a source of memories.
In my blog next week, I would like to address some ideas for developing, maintaining, and even enhancing our friendships. I speak from having some experience at developing friendships but also at losing many good friends over the years. Friendship much like love, romance, marriage or any other type of strong bonded relationship must be worked at. A failure to commit to working on a relationship is the death knell for that relationship. Bonds are only as strong as the glue that cements them together. When the glue loses its adhesion, the band falls apart. The glue for friendships is intimacy. Lose the intimacy and you lose the friendship.
Time for Questions:
Do you have many good friends? What do you do to maintain your friendships? Have you ever lost a good friend? Why? What do you think you need to do more of to have stronger friendships? Which type of intimacy are most of your friendships based on? Do you have friends that fall into Aristotle’s three types? Which ones? How much work do you put into your friendships? Do you put enough?
Life is just beginning.