Friendships: Classification the First Type

¶ … Friendships: Classification

The first type of friendship most of us can recall making is that of our first 'best friend' in kindergarten, nursery school, or simply around the neighborhood. This first type of friendship occurs and reoccurs in our lives because of commonality -- common age, common location, common interests, and even just sharing a common stage of development, like toddlerhood or being the two shortest boys in 7th grade. It is often a secure and nonjudgmental friendship. It doesn't matter if someone is the best student in class, or the best at Nintendo or kickball. Simple acceptance is the key to this type of friendship.

However, sometimes these friendships do not move to the 'next level' of intimacy. If these friendships of convenience do not become more intimate they are likely to fade when the two friends are placed in different classes, change dorm rooms or change jobs. Intimacy and a deeper friendship involves some judgment, as when you solicit advice from a friend and they tell you the truth, even if it hurts -- that you should leave your boyfriend, that you are being unreasonable to your parents, that you made a fool of yourself at the last party you attended.

Friendships with older individuals often have a mentoring quality that is even stronger than these friendships of intimacy and gentle judgment. A mentor is often treated with respect. There is often an unequal sharing between the two people in the friendship. The mentor guides and counsels and takes an interest in the younger person, and is inspired by seeing the trainee succeed. This may occur in the workforce, in the classroom between teacher and pupil, and even in cross-generational friendships.

This mentoring relationship may have some overlap with friends who are also family members. One of the proudest things any parent can boast is that his or her child is a friend as well as a dependant. This means that the parent and child share fun times, hobbies, and confidences together, as well as merely relate to one another as authority figure and subordinate. This can occur as well, to a lesser degree, with other relatives who fulfill friendship as well as familial roles, both across generations, or within similar age groups in a more common, equal fashion.