5 levels of friendship we all need

Imagine you are alone. Forever. A curtain. And the final thought experiment.

Of course, thinking about loneliness is not very pleasant. But it's not the end of the world at all. We've all been lonely once. And many of us who are now in a committed relationship will someday be single again. In addition, many consciously choose loneliness and do not considerlike they're missing something.

Now imagine something else: that tomorrow you will lose all your friends and never make friends with anyone again. For example, they will all accidentally board the same plane, which will disappear over the Russian-Chinese border. Or you throw a surprise pizza party, and the oven explodes and everyone you've known and loved all your life will fall victim to the fire.

Alone for the rest of your life? This is going to suck. But then again, you can still have an awesome life. It happens to many people.

No friends until the last breath? Sounds like the plot of a horror movie.

Romantic relationships take up a lot of our time and mental energy because they are more intense emotionally. Many analyze their romantic relationships to the point of losing momentum. But few think about the quality of friendships and whether they are surrounded assholes or not.

I wrote this article as a kind of textbook on friendship: what it is, why we make friends, what they are worth, and why at some point everything turns the wrong way.

First level: "Hey, it's the same dude"

It's about someone you recognize visually or can recognize in theory, but actually don't even remember ever interacting with them in any way. For example, security guards, people with whom you often ride in an elevator, a postman, neighbours, which you see in the entrance, but never say "Hi!" to them.

Second level: "Smile and make sounds of approval at the sight of each other"

You and someone not only recognize each other, but also chat about all sorts of nonsense. This is a utilitarian friendship. Your colleagues, your boss's wife, your stairwell neighbor, your friends' friends, your cousin's new boyfriend, the bartender, or a waiter in a cafe where you often go - you exchange pleasantries with these people, because it makes them and your life easier.

Friendship of the second level is a sad vital necessity. As much as we would like to pretend that everything is wrong, our life is largely political, and it is important for us that a large number of people in our social groups have a good opinion of us. This can often be achieved through short, nonsensical conversations about abnormal weather, sports scores, and celebrity personal lives.

Level 2 friends are your acquaintances. The people you contact for service, if something important happens, but with whom you will not have dinner every Tuesday.

True friendship starts at the next level.

Level 3: “Remember that thing we both like? Me too!"

Here are those with whom you share some common interests and meet relatively regularly. Level 3 friendships tend to be pleasant and focused on what you have in common. For example, your children go to kindergarten together, you both work in a car repair shop, or you both support the same football team. This is also a utilitarian friendship, but in contrast to the second-level friendship, when you enjoy in general pleasant company, at the third you enjoy the company of another person, focusing on something external.

It's lovely friendshipbecause it makes everything else in life a little more enjoyable. If you are very interested in something, it's nice to team up with people who like the same thing.

Level 3 friendships rarely get close enough to cause conflict in the relationship. Friends at this level avoid sensitive topics and try to stay out of each other's business. If you're friends because you both love motorcycles, you don't care what the person's family relationship is like. If you have a university friend with whom you play online games, you don't care what his job prospects are. At this level, such details simply don't matter.

For this reason, friendships on the third level can be surprisingly strong or fragile, depending on the situation. Major changes in your life, such as divorce, will not necessarily affect friendships. They can withstand significant shifts. What they can't stand is the loss of interest itself. If you're constantly going to parties and then quit, be prepared to lose touch with some of the friends who used to hang out with you. The same thing will happen when you quit sports, quit your job or move to another city.

Fourth level: "You and I are the same"

A Level 4 relationship grows out of a Level 3 relationship when two people discover that they not only share common hobbies and interests, but also share common values ​​and life experience. Such friendship lasts at least a few years, and sometimes a lifetime.

Communication at this level is usually close but relaxed. Spending time with such a friend is just as natural as spending time alone. Jokes come naturally and you feel relaxed knowing that you can share most of your thoughts and concerns without being judged or looked down upon.

I don't want to be sugary, but these are the people we live for. In our human nature there is a need to feel close, to feel accepted. We also have a need to understand and accept others. Level 4 friendship satisfies these needs.

Level 4 BFFs are rare. We are arranged in such a way that at any given time we can maintain such relationships with just a few people. It often takes us years to reach depth in them, so these friendships usually last quite a long time. You can lose it only when serious events occur in our lives that affect our values ​​and goals at a deeper level, such as getting married, having children, or mid-life crisis age. When a Level 4 friendship ends, we often go through a brief period of grief, similar to what we experience when gap romantic relationships, only softer.

Then we meet someone else and the process starts again.

Fifth level: "We are actually a family"

Brother from another mother. Sister from another father. You can call it whatever you like, but it is an incredible rarity in our lives when we feel devotion and kinship with a person, no matter what (well, almost nothing).

Jobs, husbands and wives, a new haircut, everything comes and goes. You can move from one city to another several times, spend a year abroad, get out of the closet, come back go to the toilet, go out again, but in a wig - no matter what happens, the unique friendship of the fifth level will remain unscathed. Unconditional acceptance reaches such a degree that few circumstances can really change the way you feel about each other.

Long distance and long silence can negate the third level friendship. Major change values and life goals can end a Level 4 friendship. But none of this can destroy Level 5 friendship. It is almost beyond our personal choice and control.

These relationships are not chosen or controlled. To be honest, I even doubt that they can be started at all in adulthood. It seems like such unbreakable bond occurs only between people who grew up together.

Here are a few more observations about friendship that I made:

• In some people's lives, there are only low-level friendships. They are usually considered superficial. They know everyone, say hello to everyone, but no one really knows them on a deep enough level. They have little to no emotional attachment or shared history with anyone, and certainly no opportunity to show vulnerability.
• In some people's lives, there are only high-level friendships. Perhaps they are shy and afraid to step out of their comfort zone. And although they have a few very close friends, they miss out on a lot by not trying to expand their social circle.
• In fact, we need every level of friendship to make us feel good. The only question is to find out who fits where.
• Friendship comes naturally bows down to a lower level. If we are friends, and you perceive me as a friend of the fourth level, and I perceive you as a third, then we will never be able to overcome the third level. Just because I won't pull you up to fourth.