Ziiirp
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2011
- Messages
- 1,368
During moments of reflecting my relationships with others I observed the phenomenon, that every person cheriches different types of friendships (wow what an afflatus 
).
I will shortly paraphrase my own version of a classification of relationships and then mention why I initially came up with the topic.
1.) The context-sensitive friendship
------------------------------------
The guys, that share one (or several) special interest with you and you only meet those people, when you engage in the hobby, that you have in common.
(for instance team-sports colleagues, video game buddies, reading club members, sex buddies)
2.) The teacher
---------------
You are friends with someone, that has advanced skills in a field, which you also are interested/active in, in hope that you can learn from em.
3.) The comedian/helper
-----------------------
People, that constantly (and quite successfully) try to brighten up the atmosphere with little jokes and anecdotes, not like a self-centered extrovert, but more subtly.
You appreciate their presence, because they make you laugh more often and subsequently increase your quality of life. In the same category I would put those persons, that -
negatively put - have a helper complex and always stand in for their friends (or everyone who is asking) while sometimes (or more often) forgetting their own needs.
4.) Sharing a common past
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You grew up in the same area/went to the same school/s and together lived through many significant events. You are friends (not exclusively) out of "habitualness".
5.) The successfull (wealthy)
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You like to be seen with and surrounded by someone more successfull than yourself in order to open up new opportunities in the society for you.
6.) The (subjectively physically) beautiful
-------------------------------------------
Similar to 5.), but just focused on the outer appearance of a person.
7.) The spiritual/religious
---------------------------
A person, that shares the same worldview/ideology and practices a similar spiritual path as yourself. You underwent the same problems during the journey and can help each other
to stay on the path.
Of course there could be varying taxonomies. What I wanted to illuminate: It is interesting to analyze, why we choose to be friends with someone or why another person is interested in contacting us. Of course your friends can meet several of the "criteria".
Often I come to the conclusion, that the other person has superficial motives and then I feel the need to rather be alone than to meet someone, that is just interested in
gaining social advantages out of your relationship. And vice versa, everytime when I realized I wanted to be in contact with someone, because they can provide something, but I cannot give something back, I did not want the relationship to be manifested. Retrospectively I think that is a dumb approach :D What I personally believe is, that if you have friends of category 7) you can consider yourself lucky because those kinds of friendships are damn rar in my world.
Ideally nobody should think about their "types of friendships" but in a society, where everything is mercenary sometimes a certain amount of paranoia can be vital. Do you have similar thought patterns or is that a too rational approach to evaluate relationships with human beings ? Actually I really hate the term "social engineering", because it is the tip of the iceberg of superficiality, but having a system kind of helps me to understand my own behaviour better.
).I will shortly paraphrase my own version of a classification of relationships and then mention why I initially came up with the topic.
1.) The context-sensitive friendship
------------------------------------
The guys, that share one (or several) special interest with you and you only meet those people, when you engage in the hobby, that you have in common.
(for instance team-sports colleagues, video game buddies, reading club members, sex buddies)
2.) The teacher
---------------
You are friends with someone, that has advanced skills in a field, which you also are interested/active in, in hope that you can learn from em.
3.) The comedian/helper
-----------------------
People, that constantly (and quite successfully) try to brighten up the atmosphere with little jokes and anecdotes, not like a self-centered extrovert, but more subtly.
You appreciate their presence, because they make you laugh more often and subsequently increase your quality of life. In the same category I would put those persons, that -
negatively put - have a helper complex and always stand in for their friends (or everyone who is asking) while sometimes (or more often) forgetting their own needs.
4.) Sharing a common past
-------------------------
You grew up in the same area/went to the same school/s and together lived through many significant events. You are friends (not exclusively) out of "habitualness".
5.) The successfull (wealthy)
-----------------------------
You like to be seen with and surrounded by someone more successfull than yourself in order to open up new opportunities in the society for you.
6.) The (subjectively physically) beautiful
-------------------------------------------
Similar to 5.), but just focused on the outer appearance of a person.
7.) The spiritual/religious
---------------------------
A person, that shares the same worldview/ideology and practices a similar spiritual path as yourself. You underwent the same problems during the journey and can help each other
to stay on the path.
Of course there could be varying taxonomies. What I wanted to illuminate: It is interesting to analyze, why we choose to be friends with someone or why another person is interested in contacting us. Of course your friends can meet several of the "criteria".
Often I come to the conclusion, that the other person has superficial motives and then I feel the need to rather be alone than to meet someone, that is just interested in
gaining social advantages out of your relationship. And vice versa, everytime when I realized I wanted to be in contact with someone, because they can provide something, but I cannot give something back, I did not want the relationship to be manifested. Retrospectively I think that is a dumb approach :D What I personally believe is, that if you have friends of category 7) you can consider yourself lucky because those kinds of friendships are damn rar in my world.
Ideally nobody should think about their "types of friendships" but in a society, where everything is mercenary sometimes a certain amount of paranoia can be vital. Do you have similar thought patterns or is that a too rational approach to evaluate relationships with human beings ? Actually I really hate the term "social engineering", because it is the tip of the iceberg of superficiality, but having a system kind of helps me to understand my own behaviour better.
