The types of friendships everyone should have in their lives

Some friendships last forever; there are people in our lives who always make us feel good, who are always ready to help. They are undoubtedly our dearest friends; and then there are others - better if they don't exist - whose so-called friendship sometimes harms us and sometimes harms both parties. Healthy, constructive, functional, positive friendships can be found in different areas of life, such as work, school, courses and so on. These friendships based on goodness and mutual benefit raise our mood, motivate us, eliminate the feeling of loneliness and, most importantly, make life much more meaningful.

On the other hand, there are some toxic relationships that are best avoided as soon as we recognize them. But they can still find a place in our lives somehow. Let's look at the types of friendships together before we talk about them: Friendships that should be in everyone's life

Best friendship

In fact, this type of friendship doesn't really need a definition. Because we are sure that we all have one or more names that pop into our minds as soon as we say best friends. Best friends are those whose friendship is the most important to us among all other types of friends; strong, close, sincere, honest and more... It is the friendship we have with people we talk to all the time, with whom we share our problems, with whom we trust and with whom we think no harm can come to us.

Work friendship

Just like best friends, coworkers need no explanation. Almost all of us have coworkers who we spend time with during the day, who we go out to eat with at the end of the working day or meet for coffee at lunchtime, who we know from work, and the relationship we have with them is a coworker friendship. The basis of this kind of friendship is usually work-oriented conversations centered around professional work rather than talking about very personal topics.

Social friendship

Social friendships are friendships with people with whom we spend fun times. Social friends are not necessarily people we can trust and always get emotional support from. But it does mean that they are like-minded friends to have a good time with, to hang out with. If you have friends with whom you chat, laugh and have fun at house parties and social gatherings and who bring you joy, your relationship with them can be a social friendship.

Group friendship

Group friendship is a relationship with people with whom we share a common group of friends. That is, we don't meet them in person, but we can chat and have a good time in a group, in the company of other friends. Our bond with them is our social circle. Whether we really like them or not is debatable, but from time to time we can share fun times when we are in a crowd.

Low doses of friendship

The adjective "low dose" may sound a bit strange, but don't worry, after reading the description you will probably realize that you have at least one low dose friendship in your life. Low-dose friendships are the ones we have with friends we see only a few times a month, maybe a few times a year at most, or with friends we don't get together with often because we have different lifestyles or live far away. We actually like them, we enjoy talking to them, we enjoy seeing them, but because we see them so little, we focus on accumulating pleasant moments when we do get together, rather than becoming tightly attached.

Situational friendship

Situational or situation-specific friendships are relationships with people with whom we connect in a meaningful way in a particular setting or event. Such friendships are specific to that situation and do not carry over to other moments in our lives. Examples of situational friendships are camping buddies, yoga classmates, or neighbors we only meet at apartment meetings.

Lifelong friendship

We all have a friendship that we believe will last a lifetime and has lasted until this moment in our lives. Maybe from childhood, growing up on the same street, maybe from primary school... People who are there for us in important moments, people we trust, people we talk to every day or see very little; it doesn't matter how often, what matters is how they make us feel. And mostly they are there to make us feel good. Lifelong friendships are like touchstones that show how much we have changed and progressed over the years and keep us connected to our roots.

Unlike lifelong friendships, universal friendships are the relationships we have with people we connect with at a particular life stage. When we are graduating, looking for a job, getting married, preparing to become parents, going through a grieving process, or making a big decision, these are people who share similar experiences with us, so we can find common ground. And when these processes pass, our friendships usually expire.