How do you define a 'friend' (as opposed to acquaintance, say)

[Aloha]

Interested in this because of threads on MN and because I interviewed a psychologist recently who said you couldn't say someone was a friend unless you'd known them for several years, which took me aback a bit.
What in your view makes someone a friend?

Aloha, my eyes are good. Thanks v much.

lol! irish catholic family - tick! Mother a Kelly - no but posh in laws are related to Catholic aristocracy. Bessie mates with the priest - obv. no choice when catholic education is at stake but actually parish priest spent years working with poor in s. america and is actually a person who has much valuable experience to pass on.

peanuts and red wine? well the two of you are a cheap date

Childrens' friendships are often more to do with proximity than anything else simply because children can't go looking further afield for friends if they don't feel comfortable with the kids who live nearby/go to the same school. (and pity the kids whose "friends" include the offspring of parents' friends when the kids involved actually loathe each other...) There's a lot more to friendship than simple longevity, though there is something to be said for friends who've known you a long time.
I used to think that going through any peculiarly intense experience with someone would mean you'd be friends forever, but have found that isn't necessarily true (of course, there's no reason why it should be, either).

Ooh scatterbrain how horrible I fell out with my friends over my reaction to my miscarriage which they thought I should have got over sooner. I wonder how many friendships between women fall apart because of issues around having/not having kids?

Gosh, if friendship was to do with time I would be buggered.
I keep moving ... so I would never have any friends would I?

What a load of crap!

This is what friendship means to me:

?Friendship?

?And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the ?nay? in your own mind, nor do you withhold the ?ay?.
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.?

From "The Prophet"
by Kahlil Gibran 1923

Wonderful words, as ever, from the Prophet

Friends are people that you have a bond with. Acquaintances (sp?) are people you're not quite sure about.

gosh if time and longevity meant anything. WHen I was about 25 my 'oldest' friend had an affair with my dh the whole short time we were married until he left me for her - would think that we obviously had a different concept of 'friend' !!

shared experiences - i have been away to the UK for four years and when I returned I was able to take up with some friends almost where we left off. Know they would do whatever they could to help out if I faced a crisis. Have made a fab friend since I returned. We both have little ones with special needs - those shared experiences - of issues we deal with have helped bond us as friends. But in our busy lives - time is something we don't have a lot to give. Yet I would class her as a 'friend' more than an acquaintance.

Yes Eidsvold ... but that's a strange friend to have. Sorry you went through so much heart-ache

To ds a friend is someone that he meets that when he says "let's go in the sandpit" they go too. Next thing you know they have been invited for lunch. When they say "you are not my friend any more" it's all over. No tears, no heartbreak just time to find a new friend.

Sign, if only it were that simple.

I do find that friends come and go: anyone moving on into an all-absorbing new life can drift apart from former friends. SOmetimes, even, you can fall out with someone over something which seems terribly awful and serious at the time but, a few years later you can catch up with them again and be able to laugh about whatever it was or at least not mind about it any more.
And while only the very young, the very dumb or the very insecure insist on all their friends being just like them in every respect, you need more than one factor in common to be friends with someone (ie, once you're past your teens, you need more than age in common, just being parents won't make you friends, etc)

Oh, BK you might be amused that my friend holds a grudge against Anne Boleyn for her role in eliminating Catholicism from England and has a habit of muttering that all the major Cathedrals in England (save St Pauls, I suppose) belong to the Catholics who now have to put up with hideous 1950s buildings.

A friend is someone that you feel a connection with, that you have things in common with and that you feel you could rely on for support. I would count Aloha as a friend, even though I've only known her for a year, because we have things in common and she's been tremendously supportive to me (and I hope I've been some help in return).

(It's Dino, btw.)

I don't think I am very good at maintaining long-term friendships though because I always assume that once they move on or move away that people won't want to be bothered staying in touch with me.

"someone who will help you bury the body when you kill someone."

I think it just goes back to not having any self-confidence.

Although I did get invited to an old friend's wedding last year, and there were lots of other old friends at it, and it was really lovely, actually.

I think there are people with whom you hit it off straight away. I've only known my best friend for 6 years (though I suppose that's quite a long time really - and we've gone through some major things in that time: babies, a miscarriage, a bout of PND, the death of a parent). I knew I liked her straight away - within minutes - though, obviously I didn't know we would end up as close as we have. We just 'click' - we're on the same wavelength for so many things and we never run out of things to talk about. She's fab: she's funny and kind and wise. Her dh lost his job recently and they were set to move away - I cried buckets (11th hour reprieve, thankfully - and he got another job locally ). I had really thought our children would grow up together (our two youngest are best friends too) and I was devastated.

I also have friends I've known for years - I think the test of a friendship is being able to take up where you left off, without any awkwardness. A friend from University came to visit last summer - with her dh and two children. The last time I'd seen here was her 30th birthday when she was single and childless so a lot had changed in the intervening 7 years...but it was like she'd just stepped out of the room and stepped back in again

And I still have friends from secondary school - most of whom I only see once in a blue moon (weddings, usually) and we only communicate via email and Christmas cards - but I still think of them as good friends (and when we do meet up we quickly revert to giggling schoolgirls which is a lot of fun).

It's not years of acquaintance - though that does play a part - it's that indefinable connection. I've known people for years who will never be friends - I might like them, but we just don't connect and there's always a slight stiltedness there; we never move on beyond small talk.

Oh and the last little bit: my best friend had a miscarriage days after I had ds2. She somehow managed to dispell any awkwardness - though, having had a a miscarriage myself, I know how hard it must have been for her to hold a newborn baby just days after miscarrying. She also - and I will never forget this - took my washing to do (my washing machine had broken down) - all those teeny babygros. It must have made her heart ache, but she did it anyway. That's friendship.

It is harder as you get older. As a toddler you only need to run up to someone and show them your teddy for them to be a friend. In Reception all it takes is to be sitting beside them on Blue Table. As an adult, there seems to be a complex system of maoeuvres involving phone calls, pubs, shifty glances and careful "it's not that I fancy you, I just want to be your mate" kind of body language.

Who was it on here a few months ago who saw a French-looking woman in the playground and liked the look of her, and wanted to be friends with her without coming across as a crazed lesbo stalker?