Friendship requires camaraderie and generosity.
Friendship is a word whose etymological origin has not been able to be determined exactly. There are those who claim that it comes from the Latin amicus ( "friend" ), which in turn derived from amore ( "to love" ). However, other scholars affirm that friend is a Greek word composed of a ( "without" ) and ego ( "I" ), so friend would mean "without my self." In any case, friendship is an emotional relationship between two people and one of the most common interpersonal ties that most human beings have throughout their lives.
Friendship involves various feelings, where one friend turns to the other for trust , love , comfort , respect, support and companionship , for example. These relationships occur at all stages of life, although with different degrees of importance and significance. It is said that there are friendships that are born within minutes of starting a relationship, and others that can take years to consolidate.
Friendship and support
When we talk about a friend, we are referring to that person who not only shares with us the best moments of life but also the worst. More precisely, it is considered that someone demonstrates their friendship when they are with that friend who is going through illness, loss, heartbreak, a romantic breakup , a serious economic situation...
This is precisely what serves to make the difference between friend and acquaintance clear, since many people tend to confuse both terms. Thus, the acquaintance is that individual who is present in life but only at certain moments, he is not the one who is there when the other person is having a hard time or when they need a shoulder to cry on.
From a friend, therefore, fraternity, understanding and solidarity are expected. Friendship is a kind of brotherhood where there is a commitment to reciprocity: just as one expects to receive emotional support and constant company, one also has to be willing to give it.
With an acquaintance, on the other hand, you can share laughter , conversation and moments of happiness, but without there being great closeness or intimacy.
For there to be harmony in a friendship, patience and acceptance are needed.
The concept in art
Throughout the history of cinema, art, literature and television, great stories of friendship have been told, such as, for example, the one that Miguel de Cervantes captured between his nobleman Don Quixote and his always faithful Sancho Panza . And the same thing happens with the two of the most famous characters of the English writer Arthur Conan Doyle : Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson .
In the case of the small screen we have the series "Friends" which, as its title says, revolves around the relationships established between six friends in their thirties who live in the United States .
For its part, in the cinema we find the film titled "Friendship" . The great filmmaker Steven Spielberg was the one who directed it, which brings us closer to a real case: the mutiny in 1839 of more than fifty black slaves who were traveling aboard the ship "La Amistad" .
It is common for those who share a friendship to exchange advice.
Different types of friendship relationships
Friendly relationships can even exist between two different species. That is why it is said that the dog is man 's best friend , in reference to the emotional bond that can be formed between a Homo sapiens and this animal.
Among the components that make up a friendship, we can mention pleasure in sharing activities , mutual understanding , sympathy , sincerity and interest and concern for the other .
It should be noted that, sometimes, physical presence is not an essential condition for friendship. That is why there are numerous friendships developed by correspondence or, nowadays, through the Internet .
The passage of time
Based on shared experiences, those who have an extensive friendship usually keep numerous memories and anecdotes . As time goes by, in fact, it is common for meetings to revolve around remembering old times.
Take the case of two individuals who become friends in high school. Once they graduate, they stop having daily contact as each continues their studies at different institutions. However, they maintain the bond. They both get married, have children, develop different careers, etc., but they always continue talking and meeting with a certain frequency.
In these encounters, they will most likely always end up talking about the adventures they had in their adolescence and remembering former classmates. Of course, they continue to generate new happy moments, although what they experienced leaves an indelible mark .
In other cases, on the contrary, a friendship can dissolve , even without a fight breaking out. Multiple reasons can lead to distancing, making contact less and less fluid until it finally disappears. It can be considered that, faced with this reality, friendship ceases to exist, regardless of the feelings that are held or whether, eventually, the relationship can be resumed.