July 26, 2008

• In your opinion, what is the most desirable quality in a friend?

  Friendship Types
  
  I was looking through the responses to this question and it seemed to
  me that most of the answers were saying the same thing. It’s most
  commonly expressed as “loyalty”. We want a friend who is loyal to us,
  who listens to us, who stands by us in our times of need, who we can
  confide in and who we can trust with our secrets and our stories and
  our lives. Someone we feel like we can talk to and share with. Someone
  who will be around and available and will make time for us when we need
  them. In short a kind of confidante.
  
  
  
  But I was a little surprised by how many people describe some variation
  of “funny” as their top characteristic. That’s quite different isn’t
  it? Some say this in addition to the other but some name it alone.
  Other variations include”fun”, “exciting”, “comfortable”, etc. The idea
  seems to  be in these responses a desire to have a friend that you can
  “hang out” with. Someone you can talk causally with, BS with, play
  games with, and just enjoy your time together.
  
  
  
  So in these answers we can tell that a lot of us see a friend not so
  much as a confidante but as a companion. Some are concerned with having
  friends that they can enjoy spending time no matter the circumstances
  with and others are interesting in having friends they can rely upon in
  their times of need. That’s not to say that most people don’t want the
  other too in their friends, it’s just fascinating that there is such a
  divergence in terms of which of the two people consider *most*
  important.
  
  
  
  We can conclude then that there will be some people whom if their
  friend were to be disloyal to them it wouldn’t matter that much to
  them. I mean they’d be annoyed but they’d just drop that person as a
  friend and not think much of it. Because in their mind their friendship
  was mostly about hanging out together and having fun. They don’t care
  to get particularly close to their friends. They don’t need confidants
  and their friends are expendable.
  
  
  
  For others however a single divergence that suggests a misplaced trust
  would be a devastating ordeal. Their friends are not just “companions”
  but essential parts of their lives. Their friends are a part of the
  cornerstone of their mental stability so they depend on those friends
  to be loyal and true to them. They need their friends to be on their
  side. If a friend betrays that trust they will hate it and be enraged
  and/or deeply hurt.
  
  
  
  Oh what chaos is likely to ensue when these two types of people as
  often happens become close friends of each other! It’s almost certainly
  a disastrous outcome eh? The confidante friend would be trying to get
  the companion friend to confide in them which would surely annoy the
  companion friend.  The companion friend would seem to ignore the
  confidante friend and not care about his or her problems which would
  surely drive the confidante friend mad with annoyance.
  
  
  
  But people can get past those little things. No when things go really
  wrong is when a companion friend does something that violates the trust
  of the confidante friend not thinking that he or she is doing anything
  particularly wrong or exceptional. Take for example let’s say a
  companion friend moves away and just doesn’t see the confidante friend
  very often. Now the confidante friend would probably expect the
  companion friend to reach out to them, to call,  to email, to IM,
  to
  communicate, and to try and find times to spend together. In short the
  confidante friend would want signs that the companion friend is still
  loyal to their friendship. He or she would want to know that the
  companion friend still cares.
  
  
  
  But the companion friend? He or she is probably going to only do those
  things if it gives him or her a sense of companionship. Otherwise they
  are going to look for new friends in their new area to spend time with
  and they probably aren’t going to exert any special effort to stay in
  touch with the confidante friend. Why should they? It’s just a
  friendship after all. It’s not like they’re married or anything.  They
  would expect the friendship to pick up just like it was before if they
  met again. Of course the confidante friend will be deeply hurt and
  probably wont want to resume the friendship if they meet again. And
  that in turn the companion friend will find confusing and hurtful.
  
  
  
  Another example conflict is in terms of dealing with others. The
  companion friend probably won’t think much about talking about their
  friends with other friends or family, analyzing them, or even
  criticizing their friends to others behind their back or even directly
  to the confidante friend’s face.  All these things are precisely
  behaviors that the confident friend would find to be violations of
  their friendship. To them the point of having a friend is to have
  someone you can confide it and won’t judge you, won’t criticize you,
  won’t share your secrets with anyone without you having to ask them to
  be true.  If a confidante friend were to overhear a companion friend
  talking about them to someone else it would be devastating to the confidante friend. Like be stabbing in the gut.
  
  
  
  Interesting isn’t it?  Now we could say so OK maybe
  we should all just
  try to only make friends with friends of our own “type” then.
  Confidante friends with other confidante friends and companion friends
  with other companion friends. But I think that’s a cop out and it
  doesn’t really work because we all have a little of both kinds of
  friendship in us.  Sometimes you will forge a friendship that you see
  as a means of companionship or with someone that you aren’t ready to
  confide in yet and yet that person will see you as a close confidante.
  That might be what that person needs from you here and now. And vice
  versa.
  
  
  
  So what do you do?  How do we resolve these friendship differences?
  
  
  
  Sadly there is no easy answer. Everyone has to try their best to
  identify to the extent to which their friend sees you as a confidante
  or a companion and moderate their choices in accordance. If your friend
  is a confidante type try to keep that in mind and be loyal to them and
  hold their confidences inside. If your friend is a companion type try
  not to force too much of your life on them, and try to just relax and
  enjoy having fun with them in the here and now.
  
  
  
  OK now I’ll actually answer the question from my perspective. I’m
  definitely more of a confidante type than a companion type but still I
  think my answer to this question is an answer that spans both types.
  
  
  
  Actually there are two answers.  One someone else said that I thought was really good and almost would be my answer:  Respect. 
  
  
  
  Respect as an important quality for a friend allow someone who is a
  companion type to deal with the differences in a confidante type and
  vice versa. To respect the other person enough to do your best to try
  and be the kind of friend that person needs not just to try and get
  from that person the kind of friendship you want.
  
  
  
  Respect is a great answer and very close to the one I would give as the
  most desirable characteristic. My answer though the one that came most
  immediately to my mind is:  Acceptance.
  
  
  More than anything I want my friends to accept me the
  way I am. I’d
  forgive any slight or insult if someone would just accept me and all my
  idiosyncrasies. And that’s why  I don’t really care if my friends go
  away or even forget about me, but I find it really intolerable for
  someone to leave if I think they are doing it because they found some
  aspect of being my friend intolerable or unacceptable.
  
  
  
  And acceptance is another characteristic that I think can cross the
  type friendship types. A friend who “accepts” another friend has to
  accept that friend including their views and beliefs about friendship
  be it the desire for a companion or a confidante.
     

  I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

  • 10:37 am
  • 8 Comments