Friendship

Christian friends at Gateway Camp

Friendship describes the relationship between two people have a large degree of affection and respect for each other. Typically, friends will enjoy the company of each other on a regular basis, and provide assistance if one is in need. Friendships tend to be formed either as a result of an ongoing requirement for people to be in contact with each other (for example at school, at work) or as the result of common interests.

Friendships often have different levels based on trust and the strength of the feelings between those involved. A casual friendship, in which participants usually do not feel great amounts of affection towards each other, is often known as an acquaintanceship. In contrast, a relationship involving great depths of trust and warmth, often developed over a long period of time, is referred to as a close friendship, and its participants may be known as "best friends" (this term is somewhat inaccurate, as in modern society someone is able to have many best friends, thus negating the comparative adjective). At its peak, a close friendship is akin to love, and indeed friendship is an important part of any monotonous relationship.

Friendship building skills

Agreeableness is one of the Big Five personality traits.

See also: Empathy and Agreeableness

People build friendships in both leisure and work situations.

Building strong personal relationships

• Building and maintaining healthy relationships, HealthDirect

• Building and Sustaining Relationships Building and Sustaining Relationships, University of Kansas

• Friendship 101 - 8 ways to build positive relationships with your friends

• Top tips on building and maintaining healthy relationships, Mental Health Foundation

• Building and maintaining relationships, Milne Library

Building strong work relationships

• Building Good Work Relationships

• 5 Keys To Building Lifelong Business And Personal Relationships, Forbes

• Relationship Building Skills: Definitions and Examples

• Relationship Building: How to Build Good Relationships at Work

• 8 Ways To Build Strong Relationships in the Workplace

• How to build real relations at work, Harvard Business Review

Friendship and trends in the United States

David B. Brooks in his 2023 book entitled How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen wrote:

“

The percentage of Americans who said they have no close friends quadrupled between 1990 and 2020. In one survey, 54 percent of Americans reported that no one knows them well. In 2013, Americans spent an average of six and a half hours per week with friends. By 2019, they were spending only four hours per week with friends, a 38 percent drop. By 2021, as the Covid-19 pandemic was easing, they were spending only two hours and forty-five minutes per week with friends, a 58 percent decline. The General Social Survey asks Americans to rate their happiness levels. Between 1990 and 2018, the share of Americans who put themselves in the lowest happiness category increased by more than 50 percent.

”

Liberals and friendship

See also: Liberals and friendship

Michael Medved observed that in Hollywood, "There are no movies in the recent past that send overt unapologetic conservative messages. Why? Because anybody who attempted to do that would be criticized [and] ostracized socially, if not commercially, in the Hollywood community."

Liberals often make approval of liberal values a condition of friendship. Someone in a "liberal friendship" can expect loss of the friendship if he dares to express dismay or disapproval of the liberal values. For example, Nobel laureate Ronald Coase described how he was victimized by disparaging whispers at cocktail parties about his conservative economic positions.

Atheism and loneliness

See also: Atheism and loneliness and Atheism and social/interpersonal intelligence According to an international study done by William Bainbridge, atheism is common among people whose interpersonal social obligations are weak and is also connected to lower fertility rates in advanced industrial nations (See also: Atheism and fertility rates). See also: Atheism and loneliness and Atheism and social/interpersonal intelligence

Compared to religious cultures where an extended family and a sense of community often exists, secular countries are often lonelier societies. In addition, numerous studies and other data indicate that atheists often have lower emotional intelligence and lower social skills (see: Atheism and emotional intelligence and Atheism and social skills). The atheist activist Seth Andrews candidly admitted: "Religion does community and activism and it does it really well."

According to an international study done by William Bainbridge, atheism is common among people whose interpersonal social obligations are weak and is also connected to lower fertility rates in advanced industrial nations (See also: Atheism and fertility rates).

See also: Atheism and loneliness

The Filipino value of pakikisama

See also: Interpersonal skills

The Philippines is a country of many people. And one of the core values of Filipinos is having smooth interpersonal relations.

Pakikisama is a basic tendency for Filipinos, and is expressed in their private lives, their public workplaces, and in their relationship with their neighbors. According to the results of a survey, the Filipino trait most important to Filipinos is pakikisama. Pakikisama refers to an interpersonal relationship where people are friendly with each other. To be with someone and to get along with each other indicates basic human friendliness and affinity.

Books

• How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks. Random House (October 24, 2023)

Quotes

Think about your high school alumni Imagine there is one girl who laughs and smiles all the time to everybody, is never down and always helpful to others. Another one is always making a sad face and hardly does anything good for other people. Years later, who will be remembered? When you want to make friends with that person, even though everything about you is bad, you try very hard to find something good in you and bring that to her. You bring your most precious secret that you never told another person, and tell it to her to make friends. True? - Rev. Sun Myung Moon, In Yun and Encounter [1]

See also

• Loneliness