Psychology and types of friendship
From a psychological point of view, the phenomenon of friendship is defined as a special type of relationship between people, characterized by people’s interest in each other , mutual support, spending time together, devotion and selfless help.
This is, in essence, a marriage , only without sexual relations. Friendships satisfy a person’s need for participation, sharing interests and impressions.
Depending on what a person needs most, friendship is divided into several types:
- Friendship-partnership - such communication does not affect personal space and is limited only to the work environment. This is the friendship of colleagues and business partners, which, as a rule, ends if a person changes his field of activity or place of work.
- Friendship is born under the influence of temporary circumstances and forced long-term spending time together.
These are fellow students, employees of the same department, neighbors, visitors to the same fitness club or other event. In this case, people choose the company of those with whom they are most comfortable spending time. A distinctive feature of such friendship is that it is not tense - although friends learn about each other’s problems, they do not participate in them in any way. - Friendship-psychological intimacy (or friendship of equals) is the closeness of people with common interests, temperaments, social status, and outlook on life. Such people understand each other perfectly and resemble soul mates. But such friendship does not always last forever - people change and over time stop understanding each other.
- Unequal friendship - often a person makes friends with a more successful and bright person because of his low self-esteem. As a rule, the more beautiful and successful friend uses his unpretentious friend for his own purposes.
- Situational friendship is forced communication between people connected by one situation: friendship between two parents of schoolchildren, friendship with a “helpful” colleague, and so on.
- Friendship-cooperation is a social interaction in which friends exchange experiences, moral feelings, material and psychological support. For this type of friendship, the exchange of impressions and help is very important.
Such cooperation has a kind of “code”: share news, provide moral and material support, provide voluntary assistance in case of trouble, keep secrets, and so on.Friendship lasts as long as the “code” is followed.
- Family friendship - some families have been friends for generations: they visit each other, go out into nature together, gather for events, and so on.
- Children's friendship - a person grows up together with his friend and gets to know this world. If this sweet and naive friendship survives all the trials, it will last a lifetime.
- Noble friendship does not depend on external circumstances, habits and temperaments of friends, views on the world, distances and other conditions. Such friendship is tested by distance, time, negative life circumstances, etc., and still remains. The main condition for such communication is the ability to be friends and the desire to help and understand.
There is also male and female friendship, which differs from each other only in that women share news and problems with each other, complain about life and ask for advice.
Men are not particularly accustomed to sharing their problems with each other - they simply spend time with their friends.
About the main types of friendship in this video:
Significance at different stages of human development
In early childhood, friendship comes down to walking together, playing games, watching cartoons and other similar activities. Children easily quarrel and make peace, do not try to use each other and benefit from each other.
During adolescence and adolescence, friends become the most important people in a person's life.
It is to them that he entrusts his secrets and secrets, shares all his impressions, and spends hours discussing a film or a book he has read.
Often this communication stops due to moving, entering university and other circumstances.
In adulthood, friends share their everyday problems with each other, ask for advice about relationships, talk about family and troubles at work. Friends do not have time to meet frequently due to lack of time, but this does not spoil the relationship.
Friendship rarely lasts into adulthood and old age - over the years it is simply replaced by marital relationships and raising children. However, there are friendships that last throughout adult life, but this rarely happens.
With age, a person becomes more self-confident, understands what he wants from life, so the need for old friends disappears.
A serious danger to friendship is caused by the marriage of one of the friends - now a person’s whole life will mainly revolve around his lover and children, pushing the friend far into the background.
However, friendship acquires its true meaning in trouble - a true friend will sacrifice his time and interests to help and support.
He does not need to be asked or persuaded - he will voluntarily provide help and will not demand anything in return. In a difficult life situation, such a friend will not allow you to slide into the abyss of despair and depression.
I don't want to talk to my friend. How to understand what it is?
The main conclusions I made are that I tried to be good for others, to show and prove how great I am, and when I did something for others, I did it in the hope of earning praise or proving how wonderful I am. I thought I was doing good for others, but in reality I was a clingy person who violated other people's boundaries. And by doing this I did bad not only to other people, but also to myself. I didn’t want to write, I didn’t want to invest, but for some reason I continued to do it. Now that I stopped doing this, it feels so easy and good for me. I live my own interests, mind my own affairs, and do not torment others. And I’m slowly learning not to be afraid to be myself and express my opinion. Previously, this was impossible for me; I was silent in fear of offending or losing people. And now, having learned to express my thoughts, to be in dialogue, and not listen to someone’s monologue, I felt good and I saw that in my environment there are people who are ready to listen and hear me, are ready for dialogue and they did not give up on me, so how important and necessary they need me, and not the convenient and silent person next to me. Regarding my friend, maybe the excessive communication pushed me away, I don’t even know. As for maintaining the same frequency of communication, I agree. That's enough for me. I don’t know if it’s the friend herself or me. But I no longer needed this online communication, these empty conversations. I am in favor of communicating rarely, but with high quality. I didn’t become a sociopath and didn’t go into the forest, I have a lot of social circles and people at work, I can also go shopping with my friends and all that. And having now written all this to you, I realized something for myself: yes, I might not be against seeing my friend often, going somewhere with her, but if it was easy and relaxed. I don’t want to constantly be a vest and rescue service. I love and appreciate my friend, she is very responsive and has done a lot for me. But sometimes I want to learn how to communicate easily and naturally. And I noticed that I changed my thinking and I don’t want any more pessimism in my life and I don’t want to hear it from others. This, of course, does not mean that I will not listen to my friend, no, of course, I will always listen. But I don’t want this to be the only basis of our friendship. Of course, we had a lot of other interesting things. But now I realized that I myself was an energy vampire and a whiner and I understand that people had a hard time with me and were terribly embarrassed for it. I also understand that I listened to a lot of people. Even people I didn’t know well could come up and calmly start pouring out. All your problems, sores. I was so tired of this. And besides, I myself had a very difficult period in my life. But then I had already learned not to complain and not to get into trouble (except for those closest to me), but I accepted and listened to people and their negativity. And now we have to listen. I can’t tell everyone “how much you can complain about the same thing.” And again, while I was writing all this, I got the impression that maybe it’s not a friend (well, partly more precisely. Partly because maybe there is a problem, but I perceived it more acutely because of all this. And maybe I wouldn’t have noticed before That’s why I want to figure it out and I don’t want to destroy everything and offend a good person because of my cockroaches and problems), but the fact is that I’m mentally tired because of my problems and because I was constantly trying to be comfortable and good.
"Pros" and "cons" of friendships
Friendships, like any other, have their advantages and disadvantages.
"Pros" of friendly relations:
- satisfying the need for communication;
- the opportunity not to be lonely;
- common interests with another person - having someone to discuss a book or movie with, going to the planetarium or shopping, and so on;
- help and support in any life situation;
- psychological help - listen to news and problems, give advice, console, and more.
"Disadvantages" of friendships:
- job responsibilities - a friend must help and support, console and listen, regardless of whether he wants it or not;
- unjustified expectations from a friend’s behavior;
- compliance with certain rules of friendship - the so-called “code”. Each couple or group of friends has their own.
What to do if life becomes boring? Advice from psychologists will help you!
Friends are pulling you down . How to get rid of friends? Adviсe:
Weekend dad needs help communicating with his child
My youngest daughter went to kindergarten, where the teachers took daily photo reports and cute notes about what happened to her during the day. In addition to the fact that I was simply happy to receive news about my daughter, through these entries I received additional topics for communication, knew her life better, met her friends, new books and activities.
When we met in the evening, I didn’t have to ask: “How are things in the garden?” and get upset if the child doesn’t say anything. I could have been more specific: “Did you do a play about the Gruffalo today?”, “I heard that you didn’t eat meatballs.” In the same way, you can help the “weekend dad” communicate with his child. Of course, here we must take into account his reaction, the appropriateness of such an initiative in different life situations.
Is it possible to live without friends?
Theoretically, a person can live without friends, but in practice such a life can hardly be called full.
Every person unconsciously wants to become part of some social group.
Living in a society without much connection with a specific person, the individual begins to feel lonely and unhappy. Therefore, for a full life a person needs friends.
If a person consciously does not want to make friends, saying that he does not need them, this can mean two different conclusions.
The first conclusion is a person’s reluctance to communicate and share his impressions and life events with someone. Such people are called introverts or phlegmatic people.
The second conclusion is the fear of making friends because of the possible pain that such relationships can bring. A person wants to have friends in his life, but is afraid of being abandoned or rejected one day. Therefore, he rejects such relationships in advance.
How to get rid of the victim complex? Read about it here.
Why are people friends?
The reasons why people form friendships include:
- The need for communication - a person feels more comfortable when he can discuss his problems and experiences with another person.
- A feeling of safety and self-confidence - being in a group a person feels not alone, protected from possible danger.
- Search for self-confidence , some kind of knowledge - if a person does not receive enough care and attention from his parents, then he begins to look for this in the people around him - friends. A friend will always give advice and comfort in moments of despair.
- Craving for similar things - according to researchers, people most often make friends with those people who are similar in appearance. People unconsciously begin to be drawn to each other due to external and internal similarities.
- The opportunity to be yourself - with friends you don’t have to be good, smart, successful, it’s enough to be as you are.
- The fear of being alone is a person’s instinctive desire to be in a “pack”, in a large number of people. This is what ensures survival.
Why is friendship so important to people? Each of us, consciously or unconsciously, strives for the company of other people, making connections and creating and developing friendships.
for any person to have friends for the following reasons:
- the opportunity to have fun and cheer yourself up, which has a beneficial effect on mental health;
- the opportunity to speak out, share secrets, get advice and support;
- receiving help in a difficult situation - even in trouble a person knows that he is not alone, that there is someone who will take care of him;
- psychological security and support;
- to be helpful - a friend not only speaks out, but also listens and also gives advice. This gives a feeling of significance, need, usefulness;
- spending leisure time with a pleasant person - with a friend you can go to the movies, go shopping, go on vacation, go at three o’clock to look at the moon, and so on.
They don't want to be close friends with me.
Hello, Katya! Unfortunately, without knowing you, without seeing you in person and without communicating with you by voice, it’s difficult for me to imagine what might push people away from you. This phenomenon (if it really exists) is born in contact with another person, which means that it is in contact that you need to observe it, check it and draw conclusions. Unfortunately, the correspondence conveys too sparingly the feeling of this contact, much less one letter.
But I can tell you one thing for sure: when we want something very much, it moves away from us. As soon as we “let go” of this, we stop craving the result so much (in your case, close communication), then after a short time it comes to us.
It may also be a matter of your unstable self-esteem and the resulting desire to be liked. People may feel this, which may cause them boredom or rejection, as if you are “intruding” (I don’t know for sure, I’m just guessing).
I also caught this point in your letter. “Although I try to be open, I help a lot of people...” We can be open on our own, this is a natural, immediate state of trust in ourselves and the world. When you make an effort for this, you are no longer open and natural enough, but only play the role of an open girl. Do you feel the difference? Again, this can be read by other people in contact with you and make you wary (you show openness, but at the same time you feel closed. This duality causes wariness).
By the way, do you have close communication with your boyfriend?
I advise you to let go of the desire for deep intimacy and better contact with other people for a while (although this need is quite natural and understandable). Stop focusing on it. And allow yourself to be how you feel in the present moment. Those. natural. Do you feel insecure and tight? Be like that, don’t try to pretend to be something. Honestly admit this to yourself and other people around you. You’ll see, sometimes you just have to say out loud to someone else that “I’m nervous”, “I’m embarrassed” and the feeling of nervousness and embarrassment goes away)
And of course, in order to understand this problem more deeply and for sure, you can contact a psychologist. There are many good specialists on this site who work remotely via Skype.
I hope my answer will resonate with you in some way)
Sincerely, Ekaterina Borodaenko
tel. for recording
(viber, whatsapp)
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