Friendship doesn’t exist, you’ve never seen it, and you’ve never experienced it. It is interesting how two people can be co-dependent in a context and call it friendship. Yet when the context is no longer relevant, the relationship, this so called “friendship”, doesn’t seem to be real anymore.
Let’s take for example, two people who went to school together. During school years, they were the best of friends, but after that, they just gradually lose contact. They still have the “intent” of friendship, but they’re not friends anymore. That is because the context that was keeping them together, school, is not part of their lives anymore.
The Truth About People’s Relationships
Most people have relationships with a person they consider to be a close friend based on how they were and not how they are today, or the context and reality of life they’re in now.
Friendship can be quantified as a relationship with proximity, a level of degree of hours of relating to “friends”. It can also be quantified by the quality type of this relating: is it transactional, is it supportive?
There is a type of relationships that was found a few years ago called “choice based relationships”. It is not based on conditions, marriage or transactions. It is based on where you expect nothing from the other person, you just are in proximity and intimacy and relationship with them.
You “chose” to, and not because you were forced to do so because of your environment or something like that. This type of relationships is immensely intimate and freeing for all people involved.
It is regarded as the latest stage of action logic and human development, because it’s most and foremost based on choice.
So choice in terms of friendship, is just asking yourself “Do I choose to relate with this person or not?” Thinking about it in an action logic perspective, we can say that in the very early stages, when the survival need is driving human beings, the friendship is based on power.
Such as when a person gets friends because he or she is powerful. This kind of friendship is more based on necessity than choice, it’s principally based on survival.
Then, we have the stage when friendship is based on shared beliefs, faith, principles, ideals etc…
The next level is about an utilitarian transaction, which means, the person asks themselves “What is the value to me of being nice, caring, loving towards that person and calling them a friend?”
After that, it really becomes about an impersonal systemic view to how other people choose to be in the world. How they functionally fit in their ecosystem. That way, the person will be able to build a mutually beneficial friendship with those people .
It’s not about attributes, or about what they can do for each other. It’s simply about the connection there is between two people, and the systemic value to them relating and being together.
There is no reason to relate to another person other than the choice to do so.
Friendship And The Last Stage Of Human Maturation
There are some people who have reached such a level of human maturation that they don’t have friends.
That’s because they have let go of narcissism. So they don’t feel the need to be loved, to be acknowledged, or recognized by their peers and society. Which means they don’t really need human connection.
Here’s an example to grasp the way this kind of people think: If colours were different types of friends we could have, then in this last stage of human maturation, there’s only blue. So to say there’s colours, to say there’s friends is ridiculous.
Relationships In The Work Context
It is functional and professional to be able to see through the role, but also to eminently meet people’s needs knowing that they think that they’re friends with you when you know they’re not.
Being able to see the value proposition in why they’re relating to you, the political drive and why they’re relating to you, the narcissistic drive in why they’re relating to you etc.
This is an awakened, mature view on human interactions based on being able to see the value proposition and the intention behind the friendship.
This means ability to understand the game but not be playing it because you can see through it.
So, if you truly look at your relationships, you will be able to see if you are choosing those relationships no matter what you think you want and need. Or are you choosing them because of what you really want and need?
If you’re in them because of what you really want and need, when you get that thing you want, the relationships dies.
This is a way to do a quality check on your friendships to see if you are genuinely relating with these people you call friends, because you want to be in their lives or because you need something from them.
