Pure friendship: what does that mean? What is the difference between an acquaintance and a true friend? How can you know that you are each other’s good friend? What characteristics of the relationship are involved besides, for example, sympathy, honesty or trust? Is there such a thing as one-sided friendship?
What does true friendship mean?
Nowadays there is a tendency to call all your acquaintances ‘friends’, probably because of the ease with which in digital social networks every fleeting, more or less friendly contact is already considered a friendship.
If you don’t regularly hang out or be together like real friends usually do, can you call it friendship? If you only see each other a few times a year, you will not get the opportunity to build that rare selfless bond of trust that is so typical of true best friends. You are then more likely to be acquaintances of each other than true friends, even though there is sociability and a sense of solidarity.
What are the characteristics of true friendship?
You can recognize true friends by the following qualities:
- the tendency to do what is best for the other person;
- sympathy and empathy;
- honesty, including in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak or hear the truth;
- mutual understanding and compassion; the possibility of contact for emotional support;
- enjoying each other’s company;
- trust in each other;
- positive reciprocity: an equal give and take between the two parties;
- the opportunity to be yourself, express your own feelings and dare to make mistakes and mistakes without fear of being judged for them.
True friendship is when you regard each other as a good friend, soulmate or bosom friend or even best friend. By the way, some people use the term best friend for a category of close friends, rather than for the friend with whom they feel the most affinity.
How do you know that you are each other’s good friend?
Who do you call or go to when you want to share a pleasant or sad experience? And who calls you or comes to you when he or she wants to share a pleasant experience or a sad experience? If your answer to both questions contains the same names of people, you know who you are real friends with.
Can friendship also come from one side? Also with a dear friend?
It sometimes happens that you know that you can always go to someone, but that person would not easily come to you. Or, conversely, you are always there for someone, but you would not easily go to that person with a happy or sad story.
Is that a form of one-sided friendship? At first it seems that way, but that is not necessarily the case. For example, consider two best friends, one of whom married or cohabited and has since been more inclined to share the important things in his life with his partner than with his best friend. This is often the kind of friend you want to pour your heart out to later when your relationship is under pressure or has broken down. You call such a friend your best friend or best friend, but in any case he is a true friend.
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