Why Friendship Is Our Truest Love

Looking at it this way, the concept of friendship feels much closer to a universal understanding of love than love itself. It's as if a good friend is closer to a state of enlightened love than a good partner. When we tell a friend "I love you," it’s a much broader concept than when we say it to a partner. It is a love that feels closer to the very essence of truth. In this reflection, we'll delve into the deepest meaning of friendship.

Those who have contemplated these topics know that a serious discussion requires clear definitions. For example, if we were to talk about will, it might be defined as a person's highest mental function—the conscious ability to control emotions, thoughts, and behavior. Or if we were discussing jealousy, we could define it as a complex emotion of fear and anger arising from a real or perceived threat of losing a significant relationship. However, friendship and love are so vast, so encompassing, that they resist such simple definitions.

If you try to contain friendship within a single phrase, you'll find it falls short. Take, for instance, the formulation: "Friendship is a personal, stable relationship between people based on sympathy, respect, common interests, spiritual closeness, mutual affection, understanding, and trust." But in truth, friendship can endure antipathy, can exist without shared interests or even complete understanding. What remains at its core? Mutual affection and trust. But even this is too simple. For me, friendship is a unique and profound relationship, a feeling of close kinship without the ties of blood. It's the moment you realize that the people you choose to have in your life are closer to you than those with whom you share DNA.

The Development of Friendship

When does a person start to make friends? This ability begins at the same time the ego is formed, around the age of two and a half to three. Before this, a child's personality is intrinsically linked to their mother, and they don't yet see themselves as a separate person. The moment they can recognize themselves as an individual—literally, see themselves in a mirror and grasp that it is them—they can begin to form connections with other children. From this age onward, a person retains the fundamental capacity to seek and sustain these bonds, to find those who feel like family, and to be friends with them.

The Evolution of Friendship

Why does humanity even have friendship? Its purpose is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history. Three hundred thousand years ago, our ancestors roamed the savanna, and survival depended on living in groups. An individual could not survive alone. To hunt, build temporary shelters, and protect themselves, our ancestors had to develop the ability to build trusting bonds with other members of the group. Today, we don't need friends to get food or to protect ourselves from danger, but friendship has not lost its vital functions. It still has a huge impact on our psyche, helping us to form our self-esteem, acting as a source of new experiences, and helping us to reflect on our lives.

Forming Self-Esteem: A person's self-esteem is formed in stages. The first stage, from birth to around 12 years old, relies primarily on the parent. The second, more turbulent stage, is adolescence, from about 12 to 19, where peers become the main source. A teenager values their friends' opinions over their parents' on matters of music or clothing. They seek validation from their friends, and therefore, the absence of friendship during these years can leave a huge, gaping hole in one's sense of self. Friends are truly essential for this process.

Source of Experience: We are naturally drawn to friends who are navigating similar challenges to our own. From this perspective, an important function of friendship is to share experiences and find new ways to solve problems together, drawing on a collective pool of wisdom and insight.

Reflecting on Life: When you talk to a friend, the most important thing is often not what they say in return, but the simple act of speaking your thoughts aloud. By verbalizing your ideas and feelings, your own life and path become clearer to you. This is why solitary confinement is considered such a severe punishment in most justice systems. It is a form of torture because a person needs to reflect on their thoughts with another person. Without this, a person experiences extreme stress. The recent rise of AI companions, with some apps seeing millions of downloads and high daily message counts, further demonstrates the profound need our psyche has for this kind of external reflection and conversation.

The Art of Connection

So, how do you make friends? The process hasn't changed since you were three, twelve, or twenty-five. The core principle remains the same. You have to place yourself in social situations, find a person with whom you feel a special connection, and then try to enter their social circle. There are no apps that can truly make this happen. It is a much more delicate thing than finding a romantic partner. No one is going to simply show up at your apartment and say, "I want to be your friend." A rolling stone gathers no moss. You have to be out in the world, ready to meet others. You also have to be able to get close to people. The methods for building intimacy with friends and partners are fundamentally the same, even if the outcomes are very different.

Guidance for the Heart

The quest for friendship can sometimes feel overwhelming, but timeless wisdom offers a guiding hand. Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People is still relevant and useful. It provides a wealth of practical advice on how to build connections with others. If you are struggling with social anxiety and feel you desperately need friends, this book is an excellent starting point.

And what about friendship between a man and a woman? It not only exists but is beneficial. Having friends of different genders provides different life experiences. A male friend can offer his perspective as a man on how to solve a problem. A female friend, on the other hand, can give you a completely new perspective. As the saying goes, "A person who has a good friend doesn't need to look in a mirror," but you will see a very different reflection in the mirror of a male friend than you will in the mirror of a female friend.

References

• Aristotle. (350 BC). Nicomachean Ethics.

  Book VIII and IX of this classical philosophical text provide one of the earliest and most profound analyses of friendship. Aristotle distinguishes between three types of friendship: those based on utility, pleasure, and virtue. He argues that the highest form of friendship is based on shared goodness and mutual respect, which aligns with the concept of friendship as a chosen kinship rooted in virtue rather than mere convenience or pleasure.

• Carnegie, Dale. (1936). How to Win Friends and Influence People.

  This seminal self-help book offers practical advice and psychological principles for building relationships and influencing others. Chapters such as "Fundamental Techniques in Handling People" and "Six Ways to Make People Like You" provide actionable strategies for cultivating positive social interactions and rapport, directly supporting the article’s advice on the importance of putting oneself in social situations and building connections.