I remember reading something about friendship somewhere, regarding the types of friendship…
There are 3 types:
- Reciprocity : loyalty, self-sacrifice
- Receptivity : giver-receiver status
- Association : transitory
Sometimes, things get complicated: which one should it be? From what I see, friends that you keep in contact due to work or school only are friendships by association. In such relationship, most of the time, conditional trust exists. You will expect them to do their part of the work, help you solve your problems, and after that, forget about it. These friendships are usually temporary – for the duration of school or work.
As things develop. friendship moves on to the next level: Receptivity. For this, friendship becomes 'you give, I take, I give, you take' type. It is sort of a mutual exchange, I think. Trust increases too.
And then, there's this higher level: Reciprocity. Self-less, self-sacrifice. You defend your friend. You trust your friend. But of course, there's a limit. And sometimes, there will be dilemma when that friends does something that you think is not right. Support, or bring down? Lol.
And so, things become complicated. Friendships are a complicated thing. You think it's simple, but no, it's not.
If you want me to state the number of friends I have in each category, I will say that I have the most in the third one. And yes, I do downgrade or upgrade people among the categories.I will prefer such communications to work both ways. I am easily tempted into going into the self-sacrifice route. And that sometimes lead to a win-lose situation: I lose. And that can be tiring after some time.
It's hard to achieve a win-win situation sometimes.
I will put in this table here. It's interesting.
Rules for Maintaining and Breaking Up a Friendship
| Maintaining a Friendship | Breaking Up a Friendship |
| Stand up for your friend in his or her absence | Be intolerant of your friend's friends |
| Share information and feelings about success | Criticize your friend in public |
| Demostrate emotional support | Discuss confidences between yourself and your friend with others |
| Trust each other; confide in each other | Don't display any positive regard for your friend |
| Offer to help your friend in time of need | Don't demostrate any positive support for your friend |
| Try to make your friend happy when the two of you are together | Nag your friend |
| Don't criticize in public | Don't trust or confide in your friend |
| Keep confidences | Don't volunteer to help your friend in time of need |
| Don't be jealous or negative about other relationships | Be jealous or critical of your friend's other relationships |
| Respect your friend's privacy | Feel free to take up as much of your friend's time as you want |
Every relationship will go through the following: contact, involvement, intimacy, deterioration, and dissolution. Of course, there are always ways to bring down a good relationship or to salvage a broken relationship. One has to be able to see objectively, without any biased judgement, from the other party's perspective, or if it's possible, from a third party's view. Some things, a third party can see better and clearer.
A more important will be never allow yourself to go into the hatred path. And no to impulsive anger too.
Easier said than done, isn't it?