We all need friends, even castaways who stay on an island and paint a face on a ball to have someone to chat with. According to Josepa Cucó i Giner, a Spanish anthropologist specializing in social anthropology:
Friendship is a socially and culturally modeled construction. The content and forms of friendship change according to the cultural and historical context [...] Friendship can be characterized by a type of reciprocity. The bonds of friendship are regulated by a system of reciprocal obligations and set of sanctions and real or symbolic restrictions not necessarily explicit.
Friendship is built from encounters and disagreements, affinities, tastes and coincidences. If we appeal to the emotional, it is built with the feeling of well-being that arises between two people who converse on different levels, not only through speech. Friendship is an alliance to approach and understand the world. This alliance is not only between human beings; Some animals like chimpanzees cultivate it and it helps them to develop as a society. When you are a child it is much easier to build bonds of friendship with our peers, but as we grow and the tastes and interests change, in addition to occupying more time for solitary activities, it is complicated to make friends, have friends. Friendship in adult life involves more effort, and on several occasions we are not or do not have the same spirit of finding someone to talk to, who to play with, who to leave with. We self-sabotage.
We must understand that friendship is necessary for our personal development. Through friends we discover things we did not know. Having friends means perceiving reality in different ways and helps us widen the world. The alliances we have with our friends can help us to better manage feelings, to make our work more effective, to have more chances of success. In a way, that the friends are the family we choose helps so that we can understand our own emotions.
Friendship also benefits the health of people, emotionally and physically:
- Some studies say that people with friends, compared to isolated people, enjoy better health.
- Friends help keep your mind agile. Interaction with friends makes your mind alert. The risks of dementia increase with feelings of loneliness.
- Friends can help you deal with rejection. When you have been rejected (lovingly, professionally), you can always go with your friends. Some of them will always be for you.
- Some friendships last a lifetime. The old topic of "friends forever" is real and functional. We are not hermits nor do we live on an island. Having friends means less dealing with helplessness.
- If you have a friend that you have not seen in a long time, maybe you can take advantage of some pretext and pay him a visit.