The main purpose of friendship is ...

[duszek]

... that you can let your hair down and be honest about what bothers you.

Otherwise you would have to pay a psychotherapist to listen to you.

So friendship is primarily a mutual readiness to provide psychotherapeutic support.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Alllllrightieee. I grabbed a cup of coffee, I'm sitting down, ready & listening.


What's bothering you sweetie?

C'mon...you can open-up. I'm your friend.








..............................................................



.

[Dalek Prime]

Alllllrightieee. I grabbed a cup of coffee, I'm sitting down, ready & listening.


What's bothering you sweetie?

C'mon...you can open-up. I'm your friend.

'Sweetie'? Really, Bill? Duszek, now that's 'flirting', just so you recognize it in future...

[Hobbes' Choice]

Friendship is for you to have another bear witness to your life. It relies on and is fuelled by a significant tendency in gregarious animals to seek others of their kind.

Were it not for this innate tendency we should not feel loneliness which is irrational.

[Greta]

It relies on and is fuelled by a significant tendency in gregarious animals to seek others of their kind.

Agree with you and duszek. It's all very instinctive and often unconscious. Bearing witness would seem fundamental, although perhaps deeper than friendship. To have your existence acknowledged is the first step, although we also can acknowledge non-friends.

I remember feeling intimidated when I first started school, like many. A few hostile or testing encounters can leave adults feeling fragile, let alone young children. How welcome would a friendly face be in that environment (psychotherapeutic support)? As children, we are unconsciously drawn towards those who are kind or benign as a penguin gravitates to the huddle. As adults, our requirements become more particular and nuanced but are broadly the same. It's a hard world for social animals evolved to work in partnership and relatively impotent on their own, and we need at least some allies as respite.

[Jaded Sage]

Contemplative conversation.

[Hobbes' Choice]

It relies on and is fuelled by a significant tendency in gregarious animals to seek others of their kind.

Agree with you and duszek. It's all very instinctive and often unconscious. Bearing witness would seem fundamental, although perhaps deeper than friendship. To have your existence acknowledged is the first step, although we also can acknowledge non-friends.

I remember feeling intimidated when I first started school, like many. A few hostile or testing encounters can leave adults feeling fragile, let alone young children. How welcome would a friendly face be in that environment (psychotherapeutic support)? As children, we are unconsciously drawn towards those who are kind or benign as a penguin gravitates to the huddle. As adults, our requirements become more particular and nuanced but are broadly the same. It's a hard world for social animals evolved to work in partnership and relatively impotent on their own, and we need at least some allies as respite.

I remember my first school days being puzzled by the idea of friends. Finding wholly new kids to seek out an play with. Some part of my mind, as if alien, kept asking, what exactly is a friend.
Such urges, like hunger and sexual passion are not bidden by reason, but spring up to one's conscious brain as a bold desire.

[mickthinks]

... that you can let your hair down and be honest about what bothers you. Otherwise you would have to pay a psychotherapist to listen to you. So friendship is primarily a mutual readiness to provide psychotherapeutic support.

I think that is to confuse "purpose" with "need" or "benefit". I believe we need friends to live well and achieve something close to our full potential. But that isn't a purpose, and indeed, if you enter into a friendship with any kind of purpose, it won't be a real friendship, but rather, an attempt to use the other person.

[Lacewing]

...to have somebody to play with.

[Greta]

I remember my first school days being puzzled by the idea of friends. Finding wholly new kids to seek out an play with. Some part of my mind, as if alien, kept asking, what exactly is a friend.
Such urges, like hunger and sexual passion are not bidden by reason, but spring up to one's conscious brain as a bold desire.

That sounds like the experience of an only child or one with a sizeable gap in age between siblings. It took me a while to make any sense of friendships too.

[Harbal]

.


Alllllrightieee. I grabbed a cup of coffee, I'm sitting down, ready & listening.

What's bothering you sweetie?

C'mon...you can open-up. I'm your friend.

.

There really is a desperate need on this forum for a puking emoji.

[Harbal]

I remember my first school days being puzzled by the idea of friends

I get a sense that it's a concept you still haven't fully grasped.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I remember my first school days being puzzled by the idea of friends

I get a sense that it's a concept you still haven't fully grasped.

You'd be wrong..... as per fucking usual.

[Harbal]

You'd be wrong..... as per fucking usual.

My mistake, I just assumed that you were the same arse in your everyday life as you are on this forum. Sorry for jumping to conclusions, old chap.

[Dalek Prime]

Hehe...