There are three levels that every friendship has to go through in order to be certified and include the following:
This is the very first stage of a friendship and every friendship has to go through this stage. Before you become friends with someone you slightly know that person at the start.
This is the second stage of a friendship to most it’s like the last stage of a friendship and usually so many people have a high number of friends unlike best friends. The length of time to attain this, I’ll intensively talk about this under validation of friendships (time).
In life you don’t have so many best friends; it could be one or two. This being the biggest and the last stage of a friendship, few people can attain the label “best friend” because of the heavy requirements.
These are the people that you have known for the longest period of time that automatically qualify for the label, you MUST have studied their behaviour, done things with, so close too, the ones that you can open up to, the ones that you have good family relations with, it’s like you’re family yet you not, seek advice from openly, it’s quite a lot I can’t mention every single detail. People who mostly qualify for this are the people that you have known and been with from childhood up to adulthood. There is a huge gap between a best friend and a friend and also there is a gap between a friend and the people you talk to or acquaintance. It is always hard to eliminate a best friend and jealousy would easily occur when someone you refer to as your best friend instead refers to someone else, it’s always wise not to mention your closest friends in front of your friends.
I’ll first start by defining a friend and the people you talk to.
A friend: Is a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual and family relations. One of the primary features of a friend he/she has to be supportive regardless of whatever situation, I’ll hit on it under the eight elements of a good friendship/relationship.
People you talk to: People you talk to could be anyone you know or a person you have met for the first time or a couple of times and slightly know him/her (acquaintances).
Basically, you’re not friends with them because of lack of qualification of being you friend or for some other personal reasons. The people you talk to I categorize them into three classes:
This is what I was talking about in the introduction, people you talk to have no descriptive terms apart from the Lower Class. Most people have been in such situations but can’t define them. So many people socialize with a lot of people and think that each and every person that they socialize with is their friend, which is a BIG
MISTAKE.
Even though the people you talk to constantly could turn out to be your friends, I do believe it can happen, but it has to go through some process to attain and bring out the genuine definition of a term “friend” or “best friend”.
Lastly, the people you talk to shouldn’t be your enemies or something of that nature, they should be people that you have good relations with.
When it comes to friendships, there has to be certain length of time for one to be certified as a friend. This could be a huge debate but it could vary depending on a number of factors, one being the level of closeness. According to me as I had earlier promised (Page 6 (Friends)) to dig into this, to certify a person as a complete friend, you should have known and been with that person for a minimum of 1 - 4 years, for reasons of proper studying that person’s behaviour and character. You must have stayed in touch with that person throughout that period (1 - 4 years) and you still get in touch, minus that for reasons such as distance the love tends to fade away gradually honestly.
Elements Of A Good Friendship/Relationship There are eight core elements of a best perfect friendship/relationship, and include the following:
Once you have those above eight core elements you clearly know that you have a great friendship/relationship. If things are not going well for you, you should check yourself because you could be missing one, two or even more. You should bear in mind that it takes a lot of effort, time, and hard work to attain all of that.
Friendships/relationships are worth every bit of effort you put into them.
This is an indicator of value and worth of any friendship, it shouldn’t be necessarily monetary appreciation inform of gifts, it can also be a lovely text or a compliment sent to a friend or a group of friends. This is not common in most friendships because there is always doubt from both members of the friendship and fear of confrontation on where they stand concerning the friendship, whether they are friends or not. Just imagine approaching a person and start questioning him/her about the friendship, whether you friends or not, it’s kiddish and boring.
These are some of the things that lead to either a proper successful friendship or its proper failure in the process of forming.
This is the key instrument for any friendship, without it don’t make false assumptions that you’re friends with people that you never talk to. Whether there is a distance between you or them, there should be some kind of communication. I have come across some article that says “Best friends are not the people that you need to talk to every single day, you don’t even need to talk to each other for weeks, but when you do, it’s like you never stopped talking” and I barely agree, so long as there is touch.
This communication should be balanced and I’ll dig further into that later in chapter 5. One of the features of good communication both parties should be able to understand each other, which is also something which I talked about earlier under the elements of a good friendship/relationship as understanding.
This is related to bonding and is one of the major determinants of a friendship, it doesn’t need any kind of effort, so long as you share something in common with that person and you feel comfortable and happy being with him/her, it could be watching a sporting event, watching movies or anything else that both of you’re so passionate about. This is so crucial in friendships because you can’t be friends with people you don’t talk to, like I said, get things to talk about when you hook up (work on that bonding thing to get connected).
Don’t let one word of unkindness destroy or put to end a friendship that you have built for years, invested in a lot of time, resources and effort simply because of a poorly constructed sentence containing a single sensitive: harassing, abusive or an annoying word. I emphasize that you should be careful with the way you communicate during those conversations. Pick and choose your words wisely, or it will cost your friendships.
This should be generally uniform be it face to face conversations, phone conversations, texting via SMS or social media, such words could be so hurtful and unbearable, you might end up losing some of those friends for the rest of your life. Watch you mouth and think before you speak.
I don’t know whether people have noticed the power of social especially WhatsApp. Social media could be killing friendships smoothly, let me use a simple example I believe this has happened to any social media user. So you busy texting you friend, what then happens you friend see’s you message but doesn’t respond to it. What goes into your mind at that particular moment? How does that make you feel?
If I am to tell how it feels, I’ll say it feels like being ignored and even at some point something might pop up in your mind and make you start doubting the friendship.
I don’t think social media is an appropriate mean to reach out to your friends and best friend(s) though you can use it to reach out to a few. I was speaking to a friend of mine and I told her that people who use social media tend not to bring out their actual character that you know while on social media although and she agreed. They are the same people. They digital and physical appearance differs, people on social media tend to be rude and get nasty. The people that ignored you on social media are the same people that will want or need to talk to you in case you bump into each other on the street or when you hook-up, that’s how funny social media can be.
Social media has always had an impact on friendships, Facebook being a giant, playing a huge role in connecting people, keeping friendships and trying to eliminate the distance barrier since you can reach out to friends who are far way with things like Instant messaging, posts and tags for passing some communication which is a positive.
There is also one other that I find so disturbing with social media, why should one have 1000 plus friends on Facebook when you totally know few or completely none of them. Following so many people on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram that you don’t chat with and know is blocking you from viewing posts, tweets of the people that know on social media.
With my research, I have to come to release that females are the sex that can change easily compared to the males, I haven’t found any scientific information on that but that’s what I have managed to conclude with. This could be caused by the rapid growth of their bodies and mental maturity, this can be clearly understood with this example females date, get engaged or married to males that are older than them (slightly older or very old). So for those reasons, friendships you might have with females mightn’t be progress especially when you’re a male, same-sex friendships tend to last longer than cross-sex relationships.
In additional to what I have said, over the years when a female and male had a relationship it was always challenged by the people outside it, having assumption that there could be sexual involvement and desire from one or both members of the friendship, even when both members of the friendship had partners on the side it was still challenged. Gender some how affects friendships, I have noticed that a female can’t behaviour the same she would with a fellow female when she is with a male.
This happens after a period of time, just like tastes and preferences that change from time to time. People change spiritually, financially, thinking, physically plus other things. But those that have remained your friends despite all of those changes, that’s a lot hard work that few people can do. People change easily, you or them might fail to keep up with the old friends from high school, college or neighbourhood. If you still have any of those friends frankly you should be grateful to have them in your life and they should also be grateful to have as a friend.
This is mainly in form of hostility or hospitality, from some of the people that you could be calling friends or making false assumptions that you’re friends with. Hostility or hospitality is a signal, highlighting where you stand when it comes to those friendships. This will either pull you closer or push you way from those you consider friends. You have to sit down, think and look back at some of those incidents.
The number of occurrence also matters, if the occurrence is frequent (hostility), just know that so-called friend mightn’t need or want to have you as a person close to him/her. You should be brave and smart enough to walk away from such kind of hurtful situations. This is mainly indirect, it could be a joke about you, public harassment or bad behaviour towards you.
With this am referring to phone numbers, most people save numbers of people they call friends, but for them they don’t their numbers, by the time you call them that’s when you will release that it’s different, you will call them and they will ask “Who is this?”, that only will open your mind. Like why would you synchronise contacts of people who don’t have your contact(s) on their Google accounts. If you find yourself in such similar situations, then it’s up to you to make a decision.
Friends have to have each other’s contacts, so that when you call them, they pick up and speak up straight up, not thinking before picking up the call (Who is this calling me?). If you feel like those contacts could be useful in future, write them down in your note book, don’t save them in you phone.
This has become a main determining factor on who we consider as friends. Distance being a challenge to this and it takes time to build trust to define the label “friend” or “best friend”, yet that time mightn’t be there. You can’t say you’re a friend or bestie to someone when you talk once, twice or even not at all in a whole full year, if there is anything of that kind don’t make assumptions its totally something else but not a friendship.
Being that devices have played a huge role in entertaining people, it has somehow affected friendships/relationships. With social media becoming an addiction to so many users, devices have limited/put an end to conversations. I’ll give an example, you go out with your friends for dinner, food is served, after finishing the food, everybody removes his/her smart phone from the pocket or hand bag for the ladies, it’s crazy!!! This reduces the interaction levels being that all the attention is on the phone and this also shows that you or them are less interested in the interactions, if there would be any conversation starter.
I normally refer to these kinds of friendships as shallow friendships because they are always short termed. They mainly come about because of an activity/situation after the activity/situation the friendship a lapse’s for instance you meet someone at a party, you become friends and start attending parties together, when one of the members of the friendship decides to stop partying, the friendship gets to a breaking point especially when you had nothing that got both of you connected or hadn’t bonded well.
This is quite understandable; there should be equal balance from both members of the friendship when it comes to communication/touch. With friendships/relationships, I may go further to say there should be equality in terms of everything be it communication, respect etc.
When things are not balanced then one member of the friendship could be sticking on the other which is not a sign of a stable and healthy friendship/relationship. If things are not happening for you, my only advice to you is not to pull out from the friendship/relationship, but just try to keep things balanced. I will use this example, if you’re always the first to call or text that friend/partner, you MUST stop that, wait for them to also call or text you the second time you hear from them. That will show you that they also think of you and care about you, that’s what balance is all about.
Also when one member of the friendship has more time or is always available, one might be seen as being too demanding.
Respect is one of the things that can handle people very well. You should respect your friend’s opinion never say “you wrong”, any fool would say that. You should try to understand your friends, people are not the same and that’s why the thinking also differs.
We all have done mistakes before, but being able to quickly notice the wrong you have done and apologizing immediately, it’s something that few people can do in this world. Saying sorry or sending words of apology it somehow heals the heart of the victim it might be a friends, person you talk to or even an acquaintance.
Always have that in mind.
You should find your own ways of staying away from arguments, that’s when you’ll get the best from them.
Everybody always wants to have and move with a friend whose moral behaviours are standard and can be accepted in every environment. You don’t wanna move with a friend with an abusive behaviour, people with start judging you basing on your friend’s behaving. So, moral standards are very important in the way we project ourselves to our friends and the general public as well. That’s why some people change behaviour, simply to suite the moral standards that their friends and the general public demand for (not because they want to change), friends mainly influence the change.
WHY THE HATE!?
I have seen a lot of this happening after friendships a lapse, this is mainly caused by misunderstandings, arguments etc. Like why would any friendship get to that point, of hating each other as if you had never been friends before, like why the hate?!
In case of a split no member of the friendship should hate on the other, it’s always nice and cool to keep loving but no involvement with them for purposes of avoiding arguments or anything that could sparkle a fight. It’s as simple as that.