When you hear the words “friend” or “friendship,” what comes to mind? In today’s society, the words “friend” and “friendship’ can refer to a wide range of different relationships or attachments. We can be a “friend” of a library, museum, opera, theatre, etc.… We can be a “friend” to someone “in need.” We can “friend” thousands of people on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. We can develop friendships with people in our day-to-day lives at work, in social groups, at school, at church, etc. Some people see their parents/guardians, spouses, and siblings as “friends.” Many of us even have one or more “best friends.” So, when we look at all of these different areas where we use the word “friend,” do we mean the same thing? For this chapter, we’re going to delve into the world of interpersonal friendships, which at least takes a few items off of our list (e.g., libraries, museums, operas, etc…). However, we’re still left with a term that is very difficult to define.

Beverley Fehr was one of the first scholars to note the problem related to defining the term “friendship,” “Everyone knows what friendship is – until asked to define it. There are virtually as many definitions of friendship as social scientists are studying the topic.”^[1] Table 10.1 presents some sample definitions that exist in the literature for the terms “friend” or “friendship.”

As you can see, there are several ways that scholars can define the term “friendship.” So, we must question whether defining the term “friendship” is the best way to start a discussion of this topic.

Friendship Relationships

In a 2017 book on the psychology of friendship, Michael Monsour asked the various chapter authors if they planned to define the term “friendship” within their chapters.^[2] Monsour found that the majority of the authors planned on not defining the term “friendship,” but planned on identifying characteristics of the term “friendship.” We point this out because defining “friend” and “friendship” isn’t an easy task. We all probably all see our friendships as different, which is one reason why defining the terms is so hard. For our purposes in this chapter, we’re going to go along with the majority of friendship scholars and not provide a strict definition for the term friend.

Friendship Characteristics

William K. Rawlins, a communication scholar and one of the most influential figures in the study of friendship, argues that friendships possess five essential characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of interpersonal relationships: voluntary, personal, equal, involved, and affective (Figure 10.1).^[3]

All Friendships are Essentially Voluntary

There’s an old saying that goes, “You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends.” This saying captures the fundamental idea that friendship relationships are voluntary. Friendships are based on an individual’s free will to choose with whom they want to initiate a friendship relationship . We go through our lives constantly making decisions about whether to engage in a friendship with one person or not with another. Each and every one of us has our reasons for friendships. For example, one of our coauthors originally established a friendship with a peer during graduate school because they were the two youngest people in the program. Here, the friendship was initiated because of demographic homophily but continues almost 20 years later because they established a deeper, more meaningful relationship. Take a moment to reflect on your friendships. Why did you decide to engage in those friendships? Of course, the opposite is also true. We meet some people and never end up in friendship with them. Sometimes it’s because you’re not interested or the other person isn’t interested (voluntariness works both ways). We also choose to end some friendships when they are unhealthy or no longer serve a specific purpose within our lives.

Friendships are Personal Relationships that are Negotiated Between Two Individuals

The second quality of friendships is that they are personal relationships negotiated between two individuals. We create our friendships with individuals, and we negotiate what those relationships look like with each other. For example, let’s imagine you meet a new person named Kris. When you enter into a relationship with Kris, you negotiate what that relationship will look like with Kris. If Kris is transgender, you are still entering a relationship with Kris and not with everyone who is transgender. Kris is not the ambassador for all things transgender for us, but a unique individual we decide we want to befriend. Hence, these are not group relationships; these are individualized, personal relationships that we establish with another person.

Friendships Have a Spirit of Equality

The next characteristic of friendships is a spirit of equality. “Although friendship may develop between individuals of different status, ability, attractiveness, or age, some facet of the relationship functions as a leveler. Friends emphasize the personal attributes and styles of interaction that make them appear more or less equal to each other.”^[4] Now, it’s important to note that we’re not always talking about a 50/50 split in everything is what makes a friendship equal. Friendships ebb and flow over time as the desires, needs, and interests change. For example, two people from very different social classes can be friends. Here, the different social classes may put people at an imbalance in terms of financial means, but this doesn’t mean that the two cannot still maintain a sense of equality within the relationship. Here are some ways to ensure that friendships maintain a spirit of equality:

1. Both friend’s needs and desires are important, not just one person’s.
2. Both friends are curious about their friend’s personal lives away from the friendship.
3. Both friends show affection in their ways.
4. Both friends demonstrate effort and work in the relationship.
5. Both friends encourage each other’s goals and dreams.
6. Both friends are responsible for mutual happiness.
7. Both friends decide what activities to pursue and how to have fun.
8. Both friends are mutually engaged in conversations.
9. Both friends carry each other’s burdens.
10. Both friends desire for the relationship to continue and grow.

Friendships Have Mutual Involvement

The fourth characteristic of friendships is that they involve mutual involvement. For friendships to work, both parties have to be mutually engaged in the relationship. Now, this does not mean that friends have to talk on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis for them to be effective. Many people establish long-term friendships with individuals they don’t get to see more than once a year or even once a decade. For example, my father has a group of friends from high school once a year. His friends and their spouses pick a location, and they all meet up once a year for a week together. For the rest of the year, there are occasional emails and Facebook posts, but they interact little outside of that. However, the once-a-year get-together is enough to keep these long-term (70+ years at this point) friendships healthy and thriving.

As you can see, the concept of “mutual involvement” can differ from one friendship pair to another. Different friendship pairs collaborate to create their sense of what it means to be a friend, their shared social reality of friendship. “This interpersonal reality evolves out of and furthers mutual acceptance and support, trust and confidence, dependability and assistance, and discussion of thoughts and feelings.”^[5] One reason why defining the term “friendship” is so difficult is that there are as many friendship realities as there are pairs of friends. Although we observe common characteristics across them (as we’re discussing here), it’s essential to understand that within these characteristics, there are many ways in which they’re exhibited.

Friendships Have Affective Aspects

The final characteristic of friendships is the notion of affect. Affect refers to “any experience of feeling or emotion, ranging from suffering to elation, from the simplest to the most complex sensations of feeling, and from the most normal to the most pathological emotional reactions. Often described in terms of positive affect or negative affect, both mood and emotion are affective states.”^[6] Built into the voluntariness, personal, equal, and mutually involved nature of friendships is the inherent caring and concern that we establish within those friendships, the affective aspects. Some friends will say that they love each other. Not in the eros or romantic sense of the term, but instead in the philia or affectionate sense of the term. People often use the term “platonic” love to describe the love that exists without physical attraction based on the writings of Plato. However, Aristotle, Plato’s student, believed that philia was an even more profound form of dispassionate, virtuous love that existed in the loyalty of friends, void of any sexual connotations.

All friendships will have affective components, but not all friendships will exhibit or express affect in the same ways. Some friendships may exhibit no physical interaction at all, but this doesn’t mean they are not intimate emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually. Other friendships could be very physically affective, but have little depth to them in other ways. Every pair of friends determines what affect will be like within that friendship pairing. However, both parties within the relationship must have their affect needs met. Hence, people often need to have conversations with friends about their needs for affection.

Communication and Friendship Formation

Now that we’ve explored the five basic characteristics of friendships, let’s switch gears and focus on communication and friendships. This entire chapter focuses on communication and friendships, but we will explore two communication variables that significantly impact the formation of friendships.

Communication Competence

Previously in this book, we talked about the notion of communication competence. For our purposes, we used the definition from John Wiemann, “the ability of an interactant to choose among available communicative behaviors in order that he [she/they] may successfully accomplish his [her/their] own interpersonal goals, while maintaining the face and line of his [her/their] fellow interactants within the constraints of the situation.”^[7] Not surprisingly, an individual’s communication competence impacts their friendships. Kenneth Rubin and Linda Rose-Krasnor took communication competence a step further and referred to social communicative competencies, “ability to achieve personal goals in social interaction while simultaneously maintaining positive relationships.”^[8] The most common place where we exhibit social competencies is within our friendships. Throughout our lifespans, we continually develop our social and communicative competencies through ongoing interactions with others. However, individuals with lower levels of competency will have problems in their day-to-day communicative interactions. Analisa Arroyo and Chris Segrin tested this idea and found that individuals who reported having lower levels of communication competence were less satisfied with their friendships. Furthermore, individuals who rated a specific friend as having lower levels of communication competency reported lower levels of both friendship satisfaction and commitment. Therefore, individuals with lower levels of communication competence are likely to experience difficulties in their communicative interactions with friends.

Communication Apprehension

Another variable of interest to communication scholars has been communication apprehension (CA). We also know that peers tend to undervalue their quieter peers, generally seeing them as less credible and socially attractive.^[9] In a study examining friendships among college students, college students indicated how many people they would classify as “good friends.”^[10] For people with higher levels of CA, over a third of the quiet people reported having no good friends at all. No students with low or average levels of CA reported having no good friends. Over half of high-CA individuals also reported that family members were their good friends (e.g., siblings, parents/guardians, cousins). Less than 5% of individuals with low or average levels of CA mentioned relatives. Ultimately, we know it’s harder for people with higher levels of CA to establish and maintain relationships. Furthermore, individuals with higher levels of CA are less satisfied with their communicative interactions with friends.^[11]

As you can see, both communication competence and CA are important precursors to effective communication that impact the establishment of strong friendship relationships.

Dialectical Approaches to Friendships

Earlier in this book, we introduced you to the dialectical perspective for understanding interpersonal relationships. William K. Rawlins proposed a dialectical approach to friendships.^[12] The dialectics can be broken down into two distinct categories: contextual and interactional.

Contextual Dialectics

The first category of dialectics is contextual dialectics, which are dialectics that stem from the cultural order where friendship exists. If the friends in question live in the United States, then the prevailing social order in the United States will influence their friendship; however, if the friends are in Malaysia, then the Malaysian culture will be the prevailing social order that impacts their friendship. There are two different dialectics that Rawlins labeled as contextual: private/public and ideal/real.

Private/Public

The first friendship dialectic is the private/public dialectic. Let’s start by examining the public side of friendships in the United States. Sadly, they aren’t given much credence in the public space. For example, there are no laws protecting friendships. Your friends can’t get health benefits from your job. Religious bodies don’t recognize your friendships. As you can see, we’re comparing friendships here to marriages, which do have religious and legal protections. In fact, in the legal system, family often takes precedence over friends, unless there is a power of attorney or a will.

As a significant historical side note, one of the biggest problems many gay and lesbian couples faced before marriage legalization was that their intimate partners were perceived as “friends” in the legal system. Family members could swoop in when Partner A passed and evict and confiscate all of Partner A’s money and property unless there was an iron-clad will leaving the money and property to Partner B. From a legal perspective, marriage equality was very important in ensuring the rights of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and their spouses.

On the opposite end of this dialectic, many friendship bonds are as strong, if not stronger, than familial or marital bonds. We voluntarily enter friendships and create our sense of purpose and behaviors outside of any religious or legal context. These friendships are autonomous and exist outside the social strictures that define the boundaries of marital bonds. Instead of having a religious organization dictate the morality of a relationship, friendships ultimately develop their sense of morality, which is based within the relationship itself.

Ideal/Real

From the moment we are born, we are socialized into a wide range of relationships. Friendship is one of those relationships. We learn about friendship from our families, schools, the media, peers, and others. With each of these different sources of information, we develop an ideal of what “friendship” should be. However, friendships are not ideal; they are real, functioning relationships with pluses and minuses. This dialectic also impacts how we communicate and interact within the friendship itself. If our culture teaches us that people should be reserved and respectful in private, then a simple act of laughing with another person can be an outward sign of friendship.

Interactional Dialectics

It’s essential to recognize that friendships evolve over time, along with the way we interact within them. For communication scholars, Rawlins interactional dialectics help us understand how communicative behavior happens within friendships.^[13] Rawlins noted four primary communicative dialectics for friendships: independence/dependence, affection/instrumentality, judgment/acceptance, and expressiveness/protectiveness.

Independence/Dependence

Foremost, friendships are voluntary relationships that we choose to have. However, there is a constant pull between the desire to be an independent person and the willingness to depend on one’s friends. Let’s look at a quick example. It’s a Friday afternoon, and you’re done with class or work. A movie you’ve been wanting to see has just come out, so you watch a matinee. You engaged in behavior without thinking of your friend. You acted independently. It’s also possible that you know your friend hates going to the movies, so engaging in independent movie-watching behavior is very much in line with the norms you’ve established within your friendship.

On the other side, we depend on our friendships. You may have a friend with whom you do almost everything, and it reaches the point where people see you as a duo and are surprised when you’re not together. In these highly dependent friendships, individual behavior is probably very infrequent and more likely to be resented. Now, if you went to the movie alone in a highly dependent friendship, your friend might be upset or jealous because you didn’t wait to see it with them. You may have had the right to engage as an independent person, but a friend in a highly dependent friendship would see this as a violation. This story would cause even more friction within the friendship if you had promised to see the movie with your friend. You would still act independently, but your friend would have a stronger foundation for being upset.

Ultimately, all friendships have to negotiate independence and dependence. As with the establishment of any friendship norm, the pair involved in the relationship needs to decide when it’s appropriate to be independent and when it is appropriate to be dependent. Perhaps you need to check in via text 20 times a day (a pretty dependent relationship) or talk on the phone once a year; in both cases, friendships are different and are constantly in negotiation. It’s also important to note that a friendship that was once highly dependent can become highly independent and vice versa.

Affection/Instrumentality

The second interaction dialectic examines the intersection of affection as a reason for friendship versus instrumentality (the agency or means by which a person accomplishes their goals or objectives). As Rawlins noted, “This principle formulates the interpenetrated nature of caring for a friend as an end-in-itself and/or as a means to an end.”^[14] We already discussed the importance of affection in a friendship, but haven’t examined the issue of friendships and instrumentality. In friendships, instrumentality helps us understand the following question, “How do we use friendships to benefit ourselves?” Some people are uncomfortable with this question and find the idea of instrumentality very anti-friendship. Ever had a terrible day, and all you needed was a hug from your best friend? Well, was that hug a sign of affection (maybe), but you used that friendship to get something you wanted/needed. We all do this to varying degrees within friendships. Maybe you don’t have a washer and dryer in your apartment, so you go to your best friend’s place to do laundry. In that situation, you are using your friend and that relationship to achieve a need that you have (wearing clean clothes).

The problem of instrumentality arises when one party feels that they are being used and taken for granted within the friendship itself, or if one friend stops seeing these acts as voluntary and starts seeing them as obligatory. First, sometimes there is an imbalance in friendships, and one friend feels they are being taken advantage of. Perhaps the friend with the washer and dryer realizes that the only time his “friend” really reaches out to see if he’s available to hang out is when the “friend” needs to do laundry. Second, sometimes acts that were initially voluntary become seen as obligatory. In our example, the friend who needs to wash their clothes may view what was once a nice, voluntary gesture as an obligation. If this happens, then the use of the washer and dryer becomes part of the rules of the friendship, which can change the dynamic of the relationship if the person with the washer and dryer isn’t happy about being used in this way.

Judgment/Acceptance

In our friendships, we expect these relationships will enhance our self-esteem and make us feel accepted, cared for, and wanted. Interpersonal relationships of all kinds are marked by judgmental messages. Ronald Liang argued that all interpersonal messages are inherently evaluative.^[15] So, how do we navigate the need to be accepted and the reality of being judged? Much of this involves negotiating the friendship itself. Although we may not appreciate receiving criticism from others, Liang argues that criticism demonstrates to another person that we value them enough to offer constructive feedback.^[16] Now, can criticism become toxic, yes? Maybe you’ve experienced a friend who criticized everything about you. Perhaps it reached the point where you felt that you needed to change almost everything about how you look, act, think, feel, and behave just to be “good enough” for your friend. If that’s the case, then that friend is clearly not criticizing you for your betterment but for their desires.

Expressiveness/Protectiveness

The final interactional dialectic is expressiveness/protectiveness. This dialectic raises questions about the degree to which we want to express ourselves in our friendships while determining how much we should not express to protect ourselves. As we discussed earlier in this book, social penetration theory starts with the basic idea that in our initial interactions with others we disclose a wide breadth about ourselves. Still, these are primarily surface-level topics (e.g., what’s your major, what are your hobbies, where are you from, etc.). As time goes on, the number of topics we express decreases, but they become more personal (depth). In a friendship relationship, we must navigate this breadth and depth in deciding what to express and what to protect.

Ultimately, this is an issue of vulnerability. When we open ourselves up to people and express those deeper parts of ourselves, there is a significant likelihood that disclosure of these areas could cause greater harm to the self-disclosing individual if the information were to get out. For example, one of our coauthors had a friendship sour after our coauthor’s friend started talking to our coauthor’s parents about our coauthor’s sexual orientation. Our coauthor viewed this as a massive violation of the confidentiality of what had been self-disclosed in their friendship. This friend still speaks to our coauthor’s parents 20 years later, but our coauthor hasn’t spoken to this former friend after the trust was violated. All friendships are an exploration of what can be expressed and what needs to be protected. We all have some friends that we keep at arm’s length because we know we need to protect ourselves, as they tend to be overly chatty or gossipy. We have other friends who get to see the real us as we protect less and less of ourselves in those friendships. No one will ever completely know what’s going on in our heads, but deep friendships probably come the closest and also make us the most vulnerable.

Stages and Types of Friendships

In Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical Merrily We Roll Along, the story follows the careers and friendships of three individuals as they attempt to make it in New York City. One song in the show has always stuck out because of its insightful message about friendship, “Hey Old Friends.” In the musical, three friends, Mary, Charlie, and Frank, get together after not having seen each other for a while. The purpose of the song is to discuss how some friendships can persist even when we aren’t in each other’s lives daily. The  2024 revival of the production starred Lindsay Mendez (Mary Flynn), Jonathan Groff (Franklin Shepard), and Daniel Radcliffe (Charley Kringas). A live taping of the show was released to the public worldwide in movie theaters in the fall of 2025. There is also a more traditional movie in the works, starring Beanie Feldstein (Mary), Paul Mescal (Franklin), and Ben Platt (Charley), slated for release in 2042. The story tells the story of the three friends over 20 years in reverse.

In “Hey Old Friends,” we learn a great deal about this group’s friendship and their enduring desire to be close to one another, navigating the ins and outs of life together. This section of the chapter will examine the stages that friendships go through, the types of friendships we have, and the differences between healthy and unhealthy friendships.

Stages of Friendships

As we’ve already discussed, friendships are not static relationships we’re born with. Instead, these relationships are dynamic, and we grow with them. To help us understand how we ultimately form friendships, William Rawlins broke this process into seven stages of friendship (Figure 10.2).^[21]

Role Delimited Interaction

The first stage of friendship is called role-delimited interaction. The basic idea behind this stage is that we all exist in a wide range of roles within our lives, such as shopper, salesperson, patient, driver, student, parent/guardian, spouse, etc. In each of these different roles, we end up interacting with a wide range of different people. For example, imagine you’re just sitting down in a new class in college, and you talk to the stranger sitting next to you named Adilah. Here, you are both interacting within your roles as students. Outside of those roles and that context, you may never meet and may never develop a social relationship with this other person. This does not discount the possibility of random chance encounters with other people. Still, most of our interpersonal relationships (outside of our family) stem from these roles and the communicative contexts they present.

Friendly Relations

In role-delimited interaction, we may decide to transition to the second stage of friendship, characterized by friendly relations. These relations are positive interactions, but they still exist within the same roles. In our example, we start chatting with Adilah before each class begins. Though, most of our interactions are still going to be within those roles, so we end up talking about the class, fellow students, the teacher, homework assignments, etc. Notice that there is not a lot of actual self-disclosure happening within friendly relations. Some people can maintain friendly relations with others for years. For example, you may interact with coworkers, members of a religious association, or neighbors within this type of relationship without them ever progressing to the next stage of friendship. According to Rawlins, friendly relationships move toward friendships because they exhibit four specific communication behaviors:

1. moves away from what is required in the specific role relationship,
2. fewer lines and less stereotyped interaction,
3. individual violations of public propriety, and
4. greater spontaneity.^[22]

First, we interact in a manner that doesn’t resemble the original roles we had. In our example, we interact in a manner that doesn’t resemble the roles of students when they first meet. Second, we move away from lines of communication that are stereotypes for our roles. For example, some possible stereotyped lines for two students could include, “What did you think of the homework?” “Did you bring your book with you today?” “See you next class,” etc. In each of these lines, we enact dialogue that is expected (or stereotyped) within the context of the class itself. Third, more of our normal selves will start to seep into our interactions, which are often referred to as violations of public propriety. Maybe one day Adilah turns to you before class, saying, “That reading for homework was such a waste of time.” Here, Adilah is giving you a bit more insight into who she is as a person “These violations of public propriety single an individual out as having an essential side which is not so easily circumscribed by the protocol of a situation.”^[23] Last, we see increased spontaneity in our interactions with the other person. Over time, these interactions, although still interacting within their formal roles, take on more social and less formalized tones. Perhaps one day Adilah will tell you a joke or share a piece of gossip she’s heard. Here, Adilah is being more spontaneous and less structured in her interactions with us.

Moves-Toward-Friendship

At some point, people decide to interact with one another beyond the roles they initially assumed when they first met. This change in roles is voluntary. In our example, Adilah might invite you to get coffee after class one day, and then you ask her to get lunch before class the next day. Although it’s possible that a single step outside of those roles could be enough for a friendly relation to move toward a friendship, there is a sequence of these occurrences. In our example, Adilah may have made the first move by inviting us to coffee, but we reciprocated later by asking her to lunch. In both of these cases, we are starting to step outside of the original friendly relation and changing the nature of our original interactions.

Nascent Friendship

When one enters into the nascent stage of friendship, the friends are no longer interacting within their original roles, and their interactions do not follow the stereotypes associated with those roles. Eventually, we develop norms for how we communicate with this other person that is beyond those original roles and stereotypes. Ultimately, this stage is all about developing those norms. We develop norms for what we discuss, when we discuss it, and how we discuss it. Maybe Adilah clarifies that she doesn’t want to talk about politics or religion, and we’re perfectly OK with that. Maybe we keep the bulk of our interaction before and after class, or we start having lunch together before class or coffee after class. The norms will differ from one friendship to another, but these norms allow us to establish parameters for the relationship in this early stage. These norms are also important because keeping them demonstrates we can be trusted. And when we show we can be trusted over time, the level of intimacy we can develop within our relationship also increases.

It’s also during this period that others see you more and more as a pair of friends, so other; external forces may begin to impact the development of your friendship as well. In our case, perhaps Adilah has a sister who also attends the school, so she starts hanging out with both of you from time to time. Maybe we have a significant other, and they start hanging out as well. Even though we may have these distractions, we must keep faithful to the original friendship. For example, if we start spending more time with Adilah’s sister than Adilah, then we aren’t faithful to the original friendship. Last, our friendship crystallizes, and others see you as a pair. One of our coauthors had a friend in graduate school, and it was very common for people to ask the friend when our coauthor couldn’t be found or to ask the coauthor when the friend couldn’t be found. You are seen increasingly as a “duo.”

Stabilized Friendship

Ultimately, nascent friendships evolve into stabilized friendships through time and refinement. It’s not like one day you wake up and go, “My friendship has stabilized!” It’s much more gradual than that. We reach a point where our developed norms and interaction patterns for the friendship are functioning optimally for both parties, and the friendship works smoothly. In nascent friendships, the focus is on the duo and developing the friendship. In stabilization, we often bring in new friends. For example, if we had found out that Adilah had coffee with another person from our class during the nascent stage of friendship, we may have felt a bit hurt or jealous by this “outsider” intruding on our growing friendship.” As stabilized friends, we realize that Adilah having coffee with someone else isn’t going to impact the strength of the relationship we already have. If anything, maybe Adilah will find other friends to grow the friendship circle. However, like any relationship, both parties still must attempt to make the friendship work. We need to reaffirm our friendships, spend time with our friends, and maintain the balance of equity we discussed earlier in this chapter.

Rawlins also notes that friendships in the stabilized stage can represent three different basic patterns: active, dormant, and commemorative.^[24] Active friendships are ones where there is a negotiated sense of mutual accessibility and availability for both parties in the friendship. Dormant friendships “share either a valued history or a sufficient amount of sustained contact to expect or remain eligible for a resumption of the friendship at any time.”^[25] These friends may not be ones we interact with every day, but they are still very much alive and could take on new meaning and grow back into an active friendship if the time arises. And commemorative friendships are ones that reflect a specific space and time in our lives. Still, current interaction is minimal and primarily reflects a time when the two friends were highly involved in each other’s lives. With commemorative friendships, we still consider ourselves friends, even though we don’t have the consistent interaction that active friendships typically involve.

In a study conducted by Sara LaBelle and Scott Myers, the researchers aimed to determine the types of relational maintenance strategies people use to sustain their friendships across three different friendship patterns (active, dormant, & commemorative).^[26] Using the seven relational maintenance behaviors noted by Laura Stafford (positivity, understanding, self-disclosure, relationship talks, assurances, tasks, & networks),^[27] The researchers recruited participants over the age of 30 to examine the intersection of relational maintenance and friendship types. All three friendship types positivity, relational talks, and networks related to relational maintenance to some degree. However, active friendships were more likely to use understanding, self-disclosure, assurances, and tasks to maintain their friendships than commemorative friendships. No differences were seen in relational maintenance strategies between active and dormant friendships nor dormant friendships and commemorative friendships.

Waning Friendship

Unfortunately, some friendships will not last. There are many reasons friendships may wane or decrease in importance in our lives. There are three primary reasons Rawlins discusses why this happens: “an overall decline in affect, an individual or mutual decision to let it wane based on identifiable dissatisfaction with the relationship, or a significant, negative, relational event which precipitates an abrupt termination of the friendship.”^[28] First, some relationships wane because there is a decrease in emotional attachment. Some friends stop putting in the time and effort to maintain the friendship, so it’s not surprising that there’s a decrease in emotional attachment. Second, both parties may become dissatisfied with the relationship and decide to take a hiatus or spend more time with other friends. Last, something could happen, a relationship-destroying event. You find out that Adilah had an affair with your romantic partner. Adilah broke a promise to you or told someone one of your secrets. Adilah started yelling at you for no reason and physically assaulted you.

There is a wide range of discrete events that could end a friendship. In a study conducted by a team of researchers led by Amy Janan Johnson, the researchers interviewed college students about why their friendships had terminated.^[29][30]The most common reasons listed for why relationships fell apart were 1) romantic partner of self or friend, 2) increase in geographic distance, 3) conflict, 4) not many common interests, 5) hanging out with different groups or different friends, and 5) other. Now, females and males in the study did report differences in the likelihood that these five reasons led to deterioration. Females reported that conflict was a greater reason for the decline of friendships than males. Males reported that not having many common interests was a greater reason for friendship deterioration than it was for females. Females and males did not differ in the other three categories. It’s essential to note that, although this set of findings is interesting, it was conducted with college students, so its applicability to older adults may be limited.

Post-Friendship

The final stage of the friendship is what happens after the friendship is over. Even if a friendship ended on a horrible note, there are still parts of that friendship that will remain with us forever. That friendship will impact how we interact with friends and perceive friendships forever. You may even have symbolic links to your friends: the nightclubs you went to, the courses you took together, the coffee shops you frequented, the movies you watched, etc.… all are links back to that friendship. It’s also possible that the friendship ended on a positive note and you still periodically say hello on Facebook or during the holidays through card exchanges. Just as all friendships are unique, so are their experiences of post-friendship reality.

Friendship Styles

Beyond the stages of friendship development, different people form various types of friendships throughout their lifetime. Sarah H. Matthews ultimately noted there were three basic types of friendships that people have: independent, discerning, and acquisitive (as seen in Figure 10.3).^[31]

Independent

In her study, Matthews found that independents often saw their friendships based on specific circumstances in their lives and not necessarily by specific friends. When talking about friends, independents were more likely to about “people they knew” or “people they had known,” not reflecting on specific names. Independents were more likely to mention specific names when discussing people they were currently interacting with. For example, independents discussed friends during particular periods of their lives (e.g., elementary school, junior high/middle school, high school, college) rather than specific individuals they knew for extended periods. Matthews argues that independents frame their concepts of friendship in relation to significant life events. They also never reported having a close, special, or best friend relationships, so during periods of major life events, they didn’t have specific commitments to the people they called “friends.” Independents were also more likely to discuss friends as a general concept rather than particular friends. Comparing independents to the stages of friendship discussed by Rawlins, you can consider these to be more along the lines of “friendly relations.” Matthews chose the term “independents” because it reflects a more autonomous state. “It was clear that most of them were not isolated people, but instead considered themselves to be sufficient unto themselves.”^[32]

Discerning

The second type of friendship discussed by Matthews was the discerning style, which, unlike the independent style, is marked by a deep connection with a friend or group of friends, regardless of changing circumstances in their lives. These friendships are characterized by a deep commitment and longevity, which also means that when a discerning person loses a friend, they are most likely to experience a profound sense of loss in their life. Discerners were also more likely to draw clear lines between friendly relations and friendship. Overall, “the discerning identified … only a very few people throughout their lives whom they considered friends. Although not all of these informants had kept these friendships, those who had, valued them highly.”^[33]

Acquisitive

The final friendship style discussed by Matthews is the acquisitive style. Acquisitives are “people who moved through their lives collecting a variety of friendships, allowing circumstances to make possible the meeting of likely candidates, but then, committing themselves to the friendships once they were made, at the very least for the period of time during which they and their friends were geographically proximate.”^[34] Unlike the independents, acquisitives discussed having close connections with all of the friends they’ve met, and unlike the discerning, acquisitives were open to developing new friendships throughout their lives. These individuals develop a strong core group of friends as they go throughout their lives while acquiring new ones depending on changes within their lives.

Good and Bad Friendships

Another system for understanding friendships is to think of them regarding two basic psychological constructs: health and enjoyment. First, is the relationship a healthy one for you to have? Although this is a concept that is more commonly discussed in romantic relationships, friendships can also be healthy or unhealthy (Table 10.2).

Besides the health of a friendship, you must also question whether the friendship is something that ultimately brings you enjoyment as a person. Does this friendship give you meaning of some kind? Ultimately, we can categorize these experiences into four distinct types of friendships (Figure 10.4).

Ideal Friendship

The first category we label as “ideal friends” because these relationships are both healthy and enjoyable. In an ideal world, most our relationships would fall into the category of ideal friendships.

Waning Friendship

The second category we label as “waning friendship” because these friendships are still healthy but not enjoyable anymore. Chances are, this friendship was once ideal and has become less enjoyable over time. There are a wide range of reasons why friendships may stop being enjoyable. It’s possible that you no longer have the time to invest in the friendship, so you find yourself regretting the amount of time and energy that’s necessary to keep the friendship afloat.

Problematic Friendship

The third category of friendship, which we classify as problematic friendships, is tricky because these are enjoyable, but they are not healthy for us. Ultimately, the friend we have could be a lot of fun to hang out with, but they could also be more damaging to us as individuals. Instead of supporting us, they make fun of us. Instead of treating us as equals, they hold all the power in the relationship. Instead of being honest, we always know they’re lying to us. Ultimately, we must question why we decide to stay in these relationships.

Deviant Friendship

The last category of friendships we may have is deviant friendships, more commonly referred to as toxic friendships. For our purposes here, we use the term “deviant” because it refers to any behavior that deviates from established behavioral norms. In this case, any friendship situation that is clearly outside the parameters of what is a healthy and enjoyable friendship is not the norm. Unfortunately, sometimes people become so entrenched in these friendships that they stop realizing they’re not normal at all. Others may think that their deviant friendships are the only kinds of friendships they can get and/or deserve. It’s entirely possible that a deviant friendship started as perfectly healthy and normal, but often these were somewhat problematic in their early stages and eventually progressed into fully deviant friendships.

Deviant Friends:

• Use criticism and insults as weapons.
• Use guilt to get you to cave-in to their desires and whims.
• Immediately assume you’re lying (probably because they are).
• Disclose your personal secrets.
• Are very gossipy about others, and are probably gossipy about you as well.
• Only care about their own desires and needs.
• Use your emotions as weapons to attack you psychologically.
• Pass judgment on you and your ideas based on their own with little flexibility.
• Are stuck up and only really turn to you when they need you.
• Can be obsessively needy, but then are very hard to please.
• Are inconsistent, so predicting how they will think or behave can be very hard if not impossible.
• Put you in competition with their other friends for affection and attention.
• Conversations tend to be all about them and their desires and needs.
• Make you feel that being your friend is a chore for them.
• Make you feel as if you’ve lost control over your own life and choices.
• Cross major relationship boundaries and violate relationship norms without apology.
• Express their jealousy of your other friendships and relationships.

Friendships in Different Contexts

So far in this chapter, we’ve explored the foundational building blocks for understanding friendships. We will now examine friendships from several different perspectives: gender and friendships, cross-group friendships, and mediated friendships.

Gender and Friendships

From a highly traditional perspective on the notion of same and opposite-sex friendships, researchers compared notions of communal and agentic friendships. Communal friendships were marked by intimacy, personal/emotional expressiveness, amount of self-disclosure, quality of self-disclosure, confiding, and emotional supportiveness.^[37] Agentic friendships were centered on activity. If you look at Figure 10.5, you’ll see three curves associated with these concepts. The first one shows women being communal and men being agentic in their friendships, which was a common perspective about gender differences and friendships. In reality, research has demonstrated that both males and females can have communal relationships, even though women report notably higher levels of communality in their friendships (second set of curves). As for agency, women and men were found to both have agentic friendships, and there was considerable overlap between the two groups here, with men being slightly more agentic (seen in the third set of curves).

A considerable amount of research on friendship has focused on sex differences between males and females. In this section, we’re going to start by looking at some of the research specifics to same-sex friends and then opposite-sex friendships. We’ll conclude this section by discussing an alternative perspective on these types of relationships.

Same-Sex Friendships

For a lot of research, we use the term “same sex” to refer to two individuals of the same biological sex as friends. Gerald Phillips and Julia Wood argue that there are four primary reasons females develop friendships with the same sex: activities, personal support, problem-solving, and reciprocation.^[38] However, these four categories are different, whether looking at female or male friendships. For female same-sex friendships, the first reason is activity. These are friendships that develop around a specific activity: working out, church, social clubs, etc. Mostly, these friendships remain confined to the activity itself, providing an opportunity for conversation and noncommittal associations. The second reason is personal support. It’s this second category that many highlight when discussing the differences between female and male friendships. Personal support involves friendships where an individual has a personal confidant with whom they can share their deepest, darkest secrets, concerns, needs, and desires. These friendships are often highly stable and last for a considerable amount of time. By nature, these friendships are highly communal, which is why we discuss them as a key reason for female same-sex friendships. Third, we all have areas where we excel and areas where we need improvement. We often form friendships with people who possess skills that complement our own. Consciously or subconsciously, we develop friendships with others as a means to solve problems in our daily lives. For example, an information technology specialist may become friends with an accountant. In their friendship, they provide complementary support: computer help and financial advice. Finally, females view their friendships as highly reciprocal. They expect to get out of a friendship what they put into a friendship; it’s a mutual exchange. If a female feels her friend is not putting into a relationship the same amount of time and energy, she is less likely to keep sustaining that friendship.

As for male-male friendships, research shows that they’re not drastically different, although their dynamics may be framed differently. They still form friendships through recreation, personal support, problem-solving, and reciprocation. And these relationships can be just as intimate as those of their female counterparts, but they may appear a bit more distinct. First, many male friendships are centered around activities, such as church, work, hobbies, and social clubs. These friendships are less about having conversations and more about engaging in the activity at hand. These friendships are unlikely to be as communal as female friendships that develop around shared recreational activities. Often, people mistake these male friendships as being less “intimate” because they do not disclose a lot of information, and there isn’t necessarily a lot of talk involved. Still, males do find these relationships perfectly fulfilling.

Phillips and Woods noted that men often view friendships in terms of teams; you have allies and team members. They create tight-knit circles of in- and out-group members based on their “team” status. Part of this team status involves performing favors for one another and siding with them. It’s the whole “I’ve got your back” mentality. We should also note that males are more likely to be friends who are the most like them: similar majors, similar religious, similar rungs of the social hierarchy, similar socioeconomic status, similar attitudes, similar interests, etc.… Research has even shown that males are more likely to have male friends who are equally physically attractive.^[39] One explanation for this phenomenon is that males are more likely to develop relationships based on social hierarchies. If attractive males are on a higher rung of a social hierarchy, then it’s not surprising that the matching effect occurs.^[40]

Opposite-Sex Friendships

“Friendship between a woman and a man? For many people, the idea is charming but improbable.”^[41] William Rawlins originally wrote this sentence in 1993 at the start of a chapter about the problems associated with opposite-sex or cross-sex friendships. What do you think? J. Donald O’Meara discusses five distinct challenges that cross-sex relationships have: emotional bond, sexuality, inequality and power, public relationships, and opportunity structure.^{[42] [43]}

Emotional Bond

Foremost, in Western society, females and males are raised to see the opposite sex as potential romantic partners and not friends. One of the inherent problems with cross-sex friendships is that one of the friends may misinterpret the friendship as romantic. From an emotional sense, the question that must be answered is, “How do friends develop a deeply emotional or even loving relationship with someone of the opposite sex?” Unfortunately, females are more likely to think this is possible than males. William Rawlins attempted to differentiate between five distinct love styles that could help distinguish the types of emotional bonds possible: friendship, Platonic love, companionate love, physical love, and romantic love.^[44] First, friendship is “a voluntary, mutual, personal and affectionate relationship devoid of expressed sexuality.”^[45] Second, Platonic love is an even deeper sense of intimacy and emotional commitment without sexual activity. Third, is the interplay between friendship and love, which is often found in friendships and sexual relationships. It’s often characterized by the use of the terms “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” as distinguishing characteristics to denote paired romantic attachments. Fourth, physical love involves high levels of sexual intimacy with love levels of relationship commitment. And finally, there’s romantic love, a relationship marked by exclusivity in terms of emotional attachment and sexual activity. O’Meara correctly surmises that the challenge for cross-sex friendships is finding that shared sense of love without one partner slipping into one of the other four categories of love because often the emotions associated with all five different types of love can be perceived similarly.

Sexuality

The obvious next step in the progression of issues related to cross-sex friendships is sexuality. Inherent in any cross-sex friendship between heterosexual couples is sexual attraction. Sexual attraction may not be the initial thing in a relationship. Still, it could develop further down the line and start to blur the lines between someone’s desire for friendship and a sexual relationship. In any cross-sex friendship, there will always be a latent or manifested sexual attraction that is possible. Even if one party involved in the friendship is completely unattracted to the other person, it doesn’t mean that the other friend isn’t sexually attracted. As such, like it or not, there will always be sexuality in cross-sex friendships once people hit puberty. Now, it’s perfectly possible that both parties within a friendship are mutually sexually attracted to each other and decide openly not to explore that path. You can find someone sexually attractive and not see them as a viable sexual or romantic partner. For example, maybe you both decide not to consider each other viable sexual or romantic partners because you’re already in healthy romantic relationships, or you may realize that your friendship is more important.

Inequality and Power

We live in a society where men and women are not treated equally. As such, there will always be a fact of inequality and power imbalance between people in cross-sex friendships created by our society. As such, males are in a better position to be in an exchange relationship. O’Meara argues that cross-sex friendships should, therefore, avoid exchange friendships and develop communal ones instead. However, there is also an imbalance that may exist in terms of communal needs. Females are more likely to get their emotional needs met through same-sex friendships. However, males are also more likely to have their emotional needs met through friendships with the opposite sex. This dependence on the opposite sex for emotional needs and support places females in a subordinate position of needing to fulfill those needs.

Public Relationships

The next challenge for cross-sex friendships involves the public side of friendships. The previous three challenges focused on the private, inner workings of the friendship between a female and a male (internal side). This challenge is focused on public displays of cross-sex friendships. First, others may see a cross-sex friendship as a romantic relationship. Although not a horrible thing, this could give others the impression that a pair of friends are not available for romantic relationships. Or if one of the friends is seen on a date, it is clear that they are cheating on their significant other. Second, it’s possible that others won’t believe the couple as “simply being friends.” This consistent devaluing of cross-sex friendships and the favoring of cross-sex romantic relationships in our society puts a lot of stress on cross-sex friendships. This devaluation of friendships over romantic relationships can also be seen as a tool to delegitimize cross-sex friendships. Third, others may question the sexual orientation of the individual’s involvement in the opposite-sex friendship. If a male is in a friendship relationship with a female, he may be labeled as gay or bisexual for not turning that cross-sex friendship into a romantic one. The opposite is also true. Last, public cross-sex friendships can cause problems for cross-sex romantic partners. Although not always the case, it may be very difficult for one member of a romantic relationship to conceive that their partner is in a close friendship relationship with the opposite sex that is not romantic or sexual. For individuals who have never experienced these types of emotional connections, they may assume that it is impossible and that the cross-sex friends are just “kidding themselves.” Another problem for romantic relationships is that the significant other becomes jealous of the cross-sex friend because they believe that, as the significant other, they should fulfill any role a cross-sex friend is.

Opportunity Structure

The final challenge described by O’Meara was not part of the original four but was described in a subsequent article.^[47] This question is primarily focused on how individuals find opportunities to develop cross-sex friendships. Many aspects of our social lives are divided by gender, with females and males often treated differently. Girls go to Girl Scouts and Boys to Boy Scouts. Girls play volleyball and softball while boys play football and baseball. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t girls who play football or boys who play volleyball, but most of these sports are still highly sex-segregated. As such, when we’re growing up, we are more likely to spend social time with the same sex. Ultimately, cross-sex relationships can develop, but our society is not structured for these to happen naturally in many ways.

Postmodern Friendships

In the previous section, we looked at some of the basic issues of same-sex and cross-sex friendships; however, a great deal of this line of thinking has been biased by heteronormative patterns of understanding.^[48] The noted absence of LGBTQIA individuals from a lot of the friendship literature is nothing new.^[49] However, we have needed newer theoretical lenses to help us break free of some of these historical understandings of friendship. “Growing out of poststructuralism, feminism, and gay and lesbian studies, queer theory has been favored by those scholars for whom the heteronormative aspects of everyday life are troubling, in how they condition and govern the possibilities for individuals to build meaningful identities and selves.”^[50] By taking a purely heteronormative stance at understanding friendships, friendships scholars built a field around basic assumptions about gender and the nature of gender.^[51]

Friendship scholar Michael Monsour asked a group of friendship scholars about the definition of “friendship” and found there was little to no consensus. How then, Monsour argues, can researchers be as clear in their attempts to define “gender” and “sex” when analyzing same-sex or opposite-sex friendships.^[52] As part of his discussion questioning the nature of gender and sex and how it’s been used by friendship scholars, Monsour provided the following questions for us to consider:

• What does it mean to state that two individuals are in a same-sex or opposite-sex friendship and/or that they are of the same or opposite sex from one another?
• What decision rules are invoked when deciding whether a particular friendship is one or the other?
• Why must the friendship be one or the other?
• If friendship scholars and researchers believe that all friendships are either same–sex or opposite–sex (and it appears that most do), at a minimum there should be agreement about what constitutes biological sex. What biological traits make a person a female or a male?
• Are they absolute?
• Are they universal?^[53]
• As part of this discussion, Monsour provides an extensive list of areas of controversy related to the terms used for binary gender identity.
• What about individuals who are intersexed?
• What about individuals with chromosomal differences outside of traditional XX and XY (e.g., X, Y, XYY, XXX, XXY, etc.)? Heck, there are even some XX_males and XY_females who develop because of chromosomal structural anomalies SRY region on the Y chromosome.
• What about bisexual, gay, and lesbian people?
• What about people who are transgendered or transsexual?
• What about people who are asexual?

Hopefully, you’re seeing that the concept of ascribing same-sex and opposite-sex friendships simply based on 46-chromosomal pairs of either XX or XY who are cisgendered and heterosexual may not be the best or most complete way of understanding friendships.

We should also note that research in communication has noted that an individual’s biological sex contributes to maybe 1% of the differences between “females” and “males.”^[54] So, why would we use the words “same” and “opposite” to differentiate friendship lines when there is more similarity between groups than not? As such, we agree with the definition and conceptualization of the term created by Mike Monsour and William Rawlins’ “postmodern friendships.”^[55] A postmodern friendship is one where the “participants co-construct the individual and dyadic realities within specific friendships. This co-construction involves negotiating and affirming (or not) identities and intersubjectively creating relational and personal realities through communication.”^[56] Ultimately, this perspective allows individuals to create their own friendship identities that may or may not be based on any sense of traditional gender identities.

Cross-Group Friendships

As we noted above, research has found that one of the biggest factors in friendship creation is the groups one belongs to (more so for males than females). In this section, we will explore issues related to cross-group friendships. A cross-group friendship is a friendship that exists between two individuals who belong to two or more different cultural groups (e.g., ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, nationality, etc.). “The phrase, ‘Some of my best friends are…’ is all too typically used by individuals wanting to demonstrate their liberal credentials. ‘Some of my best friends are… gay.’ ‘Some of my best friends are… Black.’ People say, ‘Some of my best friends are…’ and then fill in the blank with whatever marginalized group which they care to exonerate themselves.”^[57] Often, when we hear people make these “Some of my best friends are…” statements, we view them as seriously suspect and question the validity of these relationships as actual “friendships.” However, many people develop successful cross-group friendships.

It’s essential to recognize that our cultural identities can also influence how we perceive ourselves as part of the “in-group” or the “out-group”. Identity in our society is often highly intertwined with marginalization. As noted earlier, we also know that males are more likely to align themselves with others they perceive as similar. Females do this as well, but not to the same degree as males. Most of us protect our group identities by associating with people we think are like us. Hence, it’s not surprising that most of our friendships are with people who are demographically and ideologically similar to us. And to a certain extent, judge members of different out-groups based on our ethnocentric perceptions of behavior. For example, some people ask questions like, “why does my Black friend talk about race so much;” “does my friend have to act ‘so’ gay when we’re in public;” or “I like my friend, but does she always have to talk to me about her religion.” In these three instances (race, sexual orientation, and religion), we see examples of judging someone’s communicative behavior based on their own in-group’s communicative behavioral norms. Especially for people who are marginalized, being marginalized is a part of who they are that cannot be separated from how they think and behave. Perhaps a friend discusses race because they are part of a marginalized racial group, which is their personal experience in life. “This is actually normal and understandable behavior on the part of these different groups. They are not the ones who make it the focus of their lives. Society—the rest of us—makes race or orientation or gender an issue for them—an issue that they cannot ignore, even if they wanted to. They have to face it every waking moment of their lives.”^[58] People who live their lives in marginalized groups see this marginalization as part of their daily life, and it’s intrinsically intertwined with their identity.

Many of us will have the opportunity to develop cross-group friendships throughout our lives. As our society becomes more diverse, the likelihood of developing cross-group friendships also increases. In a large research project examining the outcomes associated with cross-group friendships, the researchers found that two factors were the most important in developing cross-group friendships: racism and exposure to cross-group friendships. First, individuals who are racist are less likely to engage in cross-group friendships.^[59] Second, actual exposure to cross-group friendships can lead to more intergroup contact and more positive attitudes toward members of those groups.

Ultimately, successful cross-group friendships succeed or fail based on two primary factors: time and self-disclosure.^[60] First, successful cross-group friendships take time to develop, so don’t expect them to happen overnight. These relationships will take more time to develop as you navigate your cultural differences, in addition to navigating the terms of the friendship itself. Now, it’s essential that when we use the word “time” here, we are referring not only to longitudinal time, but also to the amount of time we spend with the other person. The more we interact with someone from another group, the stronger our friendship will become.

Second, successful cross-group friendships involve high amounts of self-disclosure. We must be open and honest with our thoughts and feelings. We need to discuss not only the surface-level issues in our lives, but also have deeper, more meaningful conversations about who we are as individuals and how our cultural backgrounds shape us. One of our coauthor’s best friends is from a different racial background. All of our coauthors grew up in the southern part of the United States, and one of our coauthors’ friends also grew up in an inner-city area of Los Angeles. When the two of them met, they had very different lived experiences related to both race and geographic differences. Their connection was almost instantaneous, but the friendship grew out of many long nights spent in conversation over the years.

Mediated Friendships

Probably nothing has more radically altered what the words “friend” and “friendship” mean has been the widespread use of social technology. Although the Internet, as such, has been around since 1969 and was consistently used for the exchange of messages all the way through the 1990s, the public didn’t start to become more actively involved with the technology until it became cheap enough to use in one’s daily life. Before December 1996, using the “information superhighway” was limited to tech professionals, colleges and universities, the government, and hobbyists. Before December 1996, the pricing model for Internet use had been similar to that of a telephone subscription. You paid a base rate that allowed you a certain number of hours each month (usually 10) of connected Internet time, and then you paid an additional rate for each subsequent hour. People who were highly active on the Internet racked up enormous bills. Of course, this all changed in December 1996 when America Online (AOL) decided to offer its internet service provider to the world for $19.95 per month for unlimited usage. This change in the pricing structure ultimately led to the first significant wave of people jumping online, as it was now economically feasible.

The Internet that we all know and love today bears little resemblance to the landscape of the late 20^th century. A great deal has changed in the first 20 years of the new millennium regarding technology and how we utilize it to interact with our friends and family. For our purposes, we will focus on the issue of mediated friendships in this section. We’ll discuss computer-mediated communication, in general, in Chapter 12.

In the earliest days of online friendships, technology was commonly used to interact with people at a greater geographic distance. You met friends in chatrooms or on bulletin boards (precursors to modern social media), and most often, these people were not ones in your town, state, or even country. By 2002, 72% of college students were interacting with their friends online.^[61] This is the same year Friendster is created, the year before MySpace comes into existence, and a solid two years before Facebook is created (February 4, 2004). In 2002, most interactions were conducted through email, instant messaging, and chat rooms. Today, we talk less about using the Internet and more about what types of applications people are using on their smartphones (The iPhone came out on June 29, 2007). For example, in 2018, 68% of U.S. adults used Facebook. By comparison, 81% of adults 18 to 29 use Facebook, while only 41% of U.S. adults over the age of 65 are using Facebook.^[62] What about other common apps, 73% use YouTube, 35% use Instagram, 29% use Pinterest, 27% use Snapchat, 25% use LinkedIn, 24% use Twitter, and 22% use WhatsApp.

All of these different technologies have enabled us to keep in touch with each other in ways that didn’t exist at the beginning of the 21^st century. As such, the nature of the terms “friend” and “friendship” has changed. For example, how does one differentiate between a friend someone has primarily online and a friend someone sees face-to-face daily? Does the type of technology we use help us explain the nature of our friendships? Let’s explore both questions.

What’s a Friend?

As mentioned at the very beginning of this chapter, one of the biggest changes to the story of friendship has been the dilution of the term “friendship.” In some ways, this dilution is a result of social networking sites like Friendster, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. Today, we “friend” people on Facebook that we wouldn’t have had any contact with 20 years ago. We have expanded the term “friend” to include everything from casual acquaintances to best friends. When we compare William Rawlins six stages of friendship to how we use the term “friend” in the mediated context, you’ll see that everything from friendly relations to stabilized friendships gets the same generic term, “friend.”^[63]

One Australian writer, Mobinah Ahmad realized that the term “friend” was being widely used and often didn’t fit the exact nature of the relationships she experienced. She created a six stage theory (see sidebar) to express how she views the nature of friendships in the time of Facebook. She started by analyzing her 538 “friends” on Facebook. The overwhelming majority of these “friends” really were acquaintances. In fact, of the 538 friends Ahmad had, she claimed that only one of them was a “true friend.”^[64]

Now that you’ve had a minute to read through Mobinah Ahmad’s six stage theory of friendships and acquaintances, how do you see this playing out in your own life? How many people do you label as a “friend” really are acquaintances?

Technologies and Friendships

Today a lot of our interaction with friends is now mediated in some fashion. Whether it’s through phone calls and texts or social media, gaming platforms, Skype, and other interactive technologies, we interact with our friends in new and unique ways. For example, a 2018 study found that 60% of today’s teenagers interact with their friends online daily while only 24% saw their friends daily.^[65] Interacting online with people is fulfilling some of the basic functions that used to be filled through traditional face-to-face friendships for today’s modern teenagers. Teens who spend time interacting with others in an online group or forum say that these interactions played a role in exposing them to new people (74%), making them feel more accepted (68%), figuring out important issues (65%), and helping them through lifetimes in life (55%).

But, are all technologies created equal when it comes to friendships? In a study by Dong Liu and Chia-chen Yang, the researchers set out to determine if how we perceive our friendships differs based on the communication technologies we use to interact.^[66] The researchers examined data gathered from 22 different research samples collected by researchers worldwide. Ultimately, the researchers found that there is a difference in how we use technologies to interact with friends. They labeled the two categories as Internet-independent (e.g., calls, texts) and Internet-dependent (e.g., instant messaging, social networking sites, gaming). Of the different technologies examined, “Mobile phone-based channels had stronger associations with friendship closeness, suggesting that phone calls and texting were predominantly used with the closest associates.” As a side note, the researchers did not find sex differences regarding communication technology use and friendship intimacy.

Chapter Wrap-Up

Friendship is a vital component of our interpersonal relationships. As such, we should never take our friendships for granted. For this reason, it’s important to remember that friendships (like all relationships) take work. In this chapter, we started by exploring the nature and characteristics of friendship. We then examined the stages and types of friendships. We concluded this chapter by examining friendships in various contexts.

Chapter Exercises

Real-World Case Study

Friendships often blossom between people, surprising those around them. For example, two U.S. Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were known for having a decade’s long friendship despite being on polar opposite ends of the political spectrum. They served together on the Supreme Court for 22 years until Scalia died in 2016. However, their actual friendship dates back to the 1980s, when they both served on the federal circuit court in Washington, D.C.

This unlikely friendship pair were known to travel together with their spouses, and both had an affinity for the opera. Scalia was Ginsburg’s favorite souvenir shopping buddy when the two went on trips. There’s even a famous picture of the two of them riding an elephant together during a trip to India.

So, how did the two handle their friendship when the two were such opposite ends of the political spectrum? Scalia once noted that if someone cannot agree to disagree while on the bench with others and remain friends, then they probably need to get a different job.

1. Do you think friendships of this type are possible, given the deep political divides that plague the United States?
2. Why do you think Scalia and Ginsberg’s friendship withstood the test of time and politics?
3. How can you analyze this friendship using what you’ve learned in this chapter?

End-of-Chapter Assessment

1. Which of William K. Rawlins’ friendship characteristics is the one marked by issues of emotional connection?
   1. Affective
   2. Equality
   3. Mutual
   4. Personal
   5. Voluntary
2. Which stage of friendship development is marked by four specific communication behaviors: (1) moves away from what is required in the specific role relationship, (2) fewer lines and less stereotyped interaction, (3) individual violations of public propriety, and (4) greater spontaneity?
   1. Friendly Relations
   2. Moves-Toward-Friendship
   3. Nascent Friendship
   4. Post-Friendship
   5. Waning Friendship
3. Joan is one of those people who has a lot of friendships. She has friends from when she was a young kid to friendships she developed this year. She just has a tendency of getting new friends and adding them to the list of friends she already has. Which of Sarah H. Matthews’ friendship styles does Joan reflect?
   1. Acquisitive
   2. Affective
   3. Communal
   4. Discerning
   5. Independent
4.  ____________ friendships are marked by activity.
   1. Acquisitive
   2. Affective
   3. Agentic
   4. Communal
   5. Discerning
5. A _________________ friendship is one where participants co-construct the individual and dyadic realities within specific friendships.
   1. Affective
   2. Agentic
   3. Independent
   4. Postmodern
   5. Relational