The Importance of Having Friends

Friendship refers to the close bond formed between two people or a group. This type of relationship is usually based on trust, affection, loyalty, sympathy and respect for each other between the members of the relationship.

Friendship is a fundamental component in life and also promotes the mental health of people. It is, without a doubt, one of the most significant affective relationships that one can have.

In some books of the literature the authors have emphasized the transcendence of the friendship, this can be perceived so much in old books "Don Quixote of La Mancha", as in some more modern ones, as the saga of Harry Potter.

There are also many films in which friendship has been the main component, as in the case of the "Toy Story" saga or series such as "The Big Bang Theory" or "How I Met Your Mother?". Although, without a doubt, the best relationships are the real ones.

Why is it so important to have friends?

Human beings are social beings, since we are born we need the care and affection of others to survive. As we grow up we belong to different groups and choose who we want to spend our free time with.

Having friends fosters a sense of belonging to these groups, which brings a great emotional value to the person, since feeling integrated in our closest environment is usually directly related to an increase in self-esteem and motivation.

In addition, being able to trust your friends, telling them that intimate and private information that you wish to share with them, in most cases, contributes to stress relief. Feeling listened to, understood and/or loved is often a good "soother" for "emotional pain".

Conversely, perceiving that the other party in the relationship shares with you their intimacy, concerns, achievements, emotions, etc., can make you feel valued, and also loved, which is related to an improvement in the self-concept of the listener.

It is worth mentioning in this section that this benefit occurs in those functional friendship relationships, that is, in which each person, in addition to this bond, has his/her own space and does not feel dependency on the other person.

Being able to trust a friend also helps to overcome those more complicated situations that a person may be experiencing, such as a grief, a breakup, loss of work, etc. It is therapeutic to be able to share difficult moments with someone who supports and encourages you, connecting on a deeper level.

Friends can help you change unhealthy habits. There are some studies that show that, in many cases, it is the friends who motivate change in the face of unhealthy lifestyle habits such as, for example, stopping drinking, quitting smoking, doing more physical exercise...

A friend who cares about the other person's health can encourage awareness of this problem in those who suffer from it, as sometimes it can be difficult to realize it by yourself. It also serves as a source of motivation to initiate an action plan together, for example, to go out and do physical exercise.

It is also true that the influence that a friend can exert can be so great that, sometimes, in the opposite way to the one mentioned above, it can influence negatively and incite to do behaviors that one does not want. This happens mainly in adolescence, but also in childhood, and to a lesser extent in adulthood and old age.

Returning to the positive plane, the feeling of unconditional acceptance is a generator of well-being. This refers to being able to feel that you are yourself at your best, without hiding any characteristic of your personality that you may not like.

Some studies maintain that a strong emotional bond of friendship makes it easier for the other person to express all that he or she feels on both a cognitive and emotional level, a difficulty that sometimes exists when expressing certain emotions and thoughts in a couple or even a family relationship.

Friends at Every Stage of Life

Friendships are important at each and every stage of life, from childhood to old age.

It is well known that children, from a very young age, begin to forge the foundations of friendship: in the nursery, in the park, in the community in which they live, etc... sharing experiences, moments, and even their toys, the youngest ones understand the foundations of this essential link in life.

It is worth mentioning in this section the importance that children themselves choose their friends and learn to bond. Sometimes it can be seen how parents and other caregivers "choose" their children's friends either because they consider them to be "a good influence", or because they are children of friends of the parents, or simply because of affinity with some children.

However, it is essential that the child himself can have his own space and that he can decide with whom he wants to play. However, it is essential to be able to detect situations in which the child is suffering due to certain relationships. For example, this may occur in situations of bullying in which the involvement of parents and other caregivers is necessary to eradicate this situation.

In adolescence, relationships with friends become very significant, very intense bonds are formed. At times, this stage can be complicated, hormonal changes are experienced, conflicts with the main attachment figures occur, formal operational thinking (abstract level of thinking) is reached and, in addition, the first love relationships emerge.

With all these biological, cognitive, emotional and social changes that a person experiences during his or her adolescent life, having friends to support him or her becomes very important. As Jane Austen wrote in 1798 in the book "Northanger Abbey": friendship is the best balm for the wounds that unrequited love produces in the soul.

In the other stages of life, it is equally important to establish and maintain friendly ties for all the benefits outlined above. While it is true that new friendships are built throughout the life experience, it becomes more complicated as the person moves through the stages, essentially because of two factors: because there is less free time available, and because as time goes by people become "more selective" in bonding.

Making Friends in Today's Society

In addition to the difficulties just mentioned, it is worth mentioning the obstacles we may encounter in making friends given the type of society we live in. These obstacles affect making friends at any stage of life.

Thanks to the development of some online applications it is very easy to talk to those who are far away, eliminating certain communication barriers with those who live far away from us, but these same applications can generate greater difficulty when it comes to establishing deeper friendship links with those who are closer. Especially in the adolescent stage, new technologies can generate serious interrelationship problems among young people.

In liquid modernity everything is unstable: love, work, politics and friendship. The concept "liquid modernity" refers to the changing, volatile and fickle state of today's society, that is, we experience many changes in a very short time.

As far as friendly links are concerned, it can be very easy to have many "friends" in social networks such as Facebook or "followers" in other types of networks such as Instagram, however, through these means of communication one can hardly get "human warmth", one can hardly establish a real link.

For all the benefits mentioned and by way of conclusion, it is essential to emphasize the importance of forming quality relationships of friendship and being able to enjoy them despite the difficulties that may arise along the way.

Establishing and maintaining this type of affective bond can be one of the best guarantees of happiness and well-being.