What's your view on Friendship?

1482 Views 25 Replies 14 Participants Last post by lolalalah, Apr 21, 2017

FaintStar

Discussion Starter · Apr 17, 2017 (Edited)

Hello,

I would like to know how do you treat your friends?
I have seen differences in how friends are treated by people of different cultures.
Example-
-- People from Asia and Middle East treat friends like extended family. They get invited to family events. Friends are made with the intention of being a friend for life. Spouses are also supposed to give them an important place in the family as they are considered part of family". Friends are sometimes the sounding board when one cannot discuss something with the SO or family. So there is a lot so trust, and closeness in these friendships. Friends are so visible in your life that a lot of people get to know who your close friends are after a while. Not to mention, the friendship comes with commitments too, such as sincerity, loyalty and helping out when all the chips are down...even if it might affect your own life.
These friendships transcend socio-economics barriers and they are not gender-related (i.e. Girls make more such friends than boys, etc.)
In a nutshell, friends become family and so you do not treat friendship lightly. ('I am talking about majority of friendships, not just anecdotal ones)

-- Friendship in the US doesn't seem to be like that, maybe unless these are your friends from kindergarten?? I don't know. I have seen very few such friendships in the US where the friend is like family. Usually, the GF/BF/SO, etc. become important and the friends are supposed to recede...I think most people know this, so they accept friendships based on this understanding.

I, myself, prefer the former type of friendships and so take a lot of time finding a good friend because people here are not so much into the 1st kind.

So what's your idea on friendship? Which kind do you prefer (Please elaborate if there are more kinds) and why?

Please understand that I am not referring to exceptions

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Librarylady

· #2 · Apr 17, 2017

I actually do treat my closest friend more like the former; we've been friends for 10 years so it would be strange to not feel like sisters at this point. Our friendship is pretty deep and intimate.

On the other hand, it depends on the friend. Not every friend can be seen as family as you might not know them long enough or trust them enough for them to be that high on the priority list yet. I am an introvert (and a pretty extreme one at that) so I don't really have the time or energy to manage a bunch of friendships on the same level. I like a select few that can fit the former, but It'll take time to get there. On the other hand, I do agree with you that it absolutely sucks when friends are replaced by SO's. In many ways our friendships can be even more important; at least to me they are.

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Librarylady

· #25 · Apr 21, 2017 (Edited)

Gotterdammerung said:
I've never had any close or best friends.

I never liked the Idea of "opening up" to people, you know... Spilling your guts, emotionally connecting, having someone by your side, the though of having those things makes me want to vomit. I prefer keeping all my problems to myself, in my opinion they are nobody's business, I always try to keep my guard up at all times. Even with family..

I sometimes feel the same. I heard ISTJ's are supposed to be extremely private, and I can relate to that too. It's actually difficult for me- being a female ISTJ-, because other women seem to want to base their friendships on opening up, getting sympathy and support and crying on each other's shoulder. I'm not really a nurturing person on the outside. I can care for people in the inside, but I'm not really the kind of person who comforts others or wants to hear about problems 24/7.

I actually like having friends, but I have more fun talking about hobbies and basic things that don't feel vulnerable to me. The only friend I had that I even somewhat opened up to was someone I've known for 10 years. Even then we don't get super vulnerable around each other and we don't talk about our problems most of the time. I couldn't imagine having the level of intimacy some people want, you know?

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