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?

I do know what you mean about self-fulfilling prophecies, anniemac. Thank you for kind words - you're rather likeable yourself too !

Marthamoo - that is awesome, true friendship. I stayed with a friend once who had lost her baby daughter and the one thing she most wanted me to do was to deal with all her daughter's clothes because she just couldn't do it without breaking down.

UnquietDad - it was me..only not quite! She was French, and cornered me at a PTA do to tell me she had been watching me in the playground...and was I French too...and how much I looked like a French film star...and did I want to see her etchings (seriously - only they were actually pencil drawings which she had brought with her). She did, sadly, come across as quite odd and stalkerish and I smile and run when I see her in the playground now as she's quite scary.

My best friend reckons the French actress I look like is Audrey Tatou, btw. Gotta love her

wow Dino, you certainly strike me as a very likeable person - can't see why anyone wouldn't want to maintain a friendship with you!

I agree with ghosty - if you've had the sort of life where you've moved every couple of years, you really can't judge friendships by their longevity.

marthamoo - it all comes back now - sorry I got things the wrong way round!

Sorry, I hijacked this a bit, in my usual attention-seeking way.

Thanks for nice comments, though .

Message withdrawn

Anniemac, I can relate to your situation 100%, I have also been in the UK for the past 8 years and in all that time have not managed to bond in any meaningful way with anyone. This despite being surrounded by loads and loads of lovely acquaintances. I have previously posted about how lonely I feel a lot of the time. My old friends also live far away....the comfortable shorthand of being with friends who have known you forever and understand where you are coming from, to speak freely without reserve, to talk shite or profoundly in equal measure without judgement, oh how I long long long for someone to talk to! The biggest difference for me between friends and acquaintances is the level of intimacy in conversation. Only a true friendship gives you the security to be able to talk about your feelings, for the rest it is all on a much more superficial level. I had started to think there was something wrong with me that I couldn't make any deep friendships, but perhaps it is more about lifestyle (working, children) and the lack of opportunity for friendships to become deeper. Clicking with someone...I still hope for that to happen! I sometimes think that that all the women in the UK have old good friends already, and that I am the only one who's on the outside looking in. Crazy I know, anyone who knew me would be amazed at this post as I am always surrounded by people and make every effort to be as sociable as I can! But....the loneliness inside is a heavy weight I am becoming resigned to. Thank heavens for modern day technology and my old dear friends across cyberspace!

Aloha, it's good to see you back. Meant to say so before.

Disagree with the psychologist (who was maybe straying outside her own area of expertise anyway?). I value long-standing friendships but have been delighted to find new friendships in the last couple of years, which I'm confident will last.

Two of my oldest friends gave me their definition 25 years ago - they said a friend is someone whose house you could turn up to unannounced at two in the morning in a crisis, and they'd welcome you (I qualified). That wouldn't apply to all the people I'd call friends, but certainly some of the dearest.

I also set great store by the relationships you can easily pick up where you left off after a separation.

I treasure the friends who help to keep things going instead of leaving me to do all the getting in touch/arranging/inviting. Not that I want to be 'turnist' (as in - it's his turn to ring me so I won't ring him) but some reciprocity makes me feel more valued. I hate the phrase 'you know where we are' - implying that if you want to see them you have to invite yourself...though I admit I've heard it more often from relatives than friends (come to think of it, it's a bit like 'you'll have had your tea'...a bit ungenerous and grudging).

A few of the people I thought were soul sisters/brothers when I was in my 20s have long ago lost touch. I couldn't have predicted this, and was sad for years - I sometimes still dream about them. But in each case it was connected with change in their lives - a new partner, usually.

Something I read earlier this week made me think I should be encouraging dd to set less store by her friendships. It was to do with girls having unrealistic expectations of their friends, so setting themselves up for repeated disappointment and later depression. I'll certainly try to teach her that if people treat her badly she's not necessarily to blame and that she can't please everyone all the time.

Hello! Looking forward to seeing you on the 11th Dino - I think you are lovely.
It is amazing how fraught the issue of friendship is for adult women, I think. Interesting about girls and friendship.

Thanks eemie!

have been lurking on this today, very unsure of what friendships mean to me at the moment - as a mother have lost friends who still don't have children but are/were of long standing... have made new mummy or school friends but not sure how they would rate re aloha's pyschologist's evaluation...

ok i can't possibly be the only person who thinks this... but do feel certain people on mnet are "friends" (based on things like - we have all been around forever, look forward to their posts, iyswim) - this is totally separate to people i have come to know in RL from mnet - but wonder if they feel the same?

yours disjointedly...

oh and also... what eemie said!

have met eemie! that's what comes of being an mnet dinosaur!

aloha, do you honestly think the friendships of adult women are complicated? pace what you said earlier about your nutty catholic friend... now i know why you think catholics are bonkers! *

i find my adult women friendships easy - but think they are rather recent and relatively shallow but not sure what my expectations should be?

aargh

• • have had friends who simply didn't understand why that 16th century church wouldn't do for our wedding...

yes i did chuckle @ yr friend and no wonder you have posted a thread on the miracles of friendship!

I suppose I mean I've read enough tortured MN threads to think that friendships are a big issue for quite a few people - well, people who frequent internet sites anyway
And there is the pressue (along with the pressure to be thin, young, rich, have a lovely camera-ready home etc) to have loads of friends.
BK, she is really very sensible and normal (oddly enough spends a lot of time with CofE bishops because of her work, who are all, apparently, completely obsessed with cream teas and alcohol) but does have this amusingly enduring resentment of Anne Boleyn....

I would say I have 4 types of friends.

I have real true, true friends, the sort that you'd trust with your life, your childrens lives. They mean the world to you. Those friends I know inside out and accept them for their finer qualities, as well as their not so fine. They also get the best and the worst of me. I have 3 friends like this, DP is one of them. I speak to them every day.

Then I have goof friends who I can call on and not be afraid to cry if I need to, and who I expect to do favours for, and am not shy to ask the same of them. I ring them quite often.

I have accqaintences who I have a massive laugh with, who I send cards to, who come round for dinner, who I invite to parties and out clubbing etc but I don't really call them inbetween to see how their life is and chat to them for half an hour.

Then I have the sort of mates who are mates of mates, or people i share musical tastes with that I see out quite a lot that I get on really well with and we always spend the evening together catching up and cracking up etc but then I won't see them again for months and months and months.

A true friend is someone who accepts me for me, warts and all.

For me a true friend is one who before I had kids would lay down my life for. Now I have kids I have to relook at that, but I would say they are always in my heart with me and I love them, unconditionally. Think that's what it's all about for me, he unconditional bit.

I suppose I mean I've read enough tortured MN threads to think that friendships are a big issue for quite a few people - well, people who frequent internet sites anyway
And there is the pressue (along with the pressure to be thin, young, rich, have a lovely camera-ready home etc) to have loads of friends

yup - agree... but suppose i find it less in general than when i was a desperately aspirational twentysomething who would have died rather than admit to being in of a w/e!

teecee, find it v interesting you have posted. have noticed yr posts on friendship before and have contrasted yr intense friendships with my laid back ones!

no value judgment there at all... just have noticed a v different approach...

As long as I had a boyfriend and colleagues I always felt happy, I think. Being between boyfriends was a problem for a few months at around 29. Didn't like that! I think I suffer slightly from being colleagueless though would actually hate to be back in an office environment at this point in my life. I always found being organised enough to go to work incredibly difficult and stressful before I added two small, contrary people to my life.

I'm fiercely loyal bossykate and my true friends are very important to be. Not sure I'd call them intense though, but fine if that's the conclusion you've drawn, I don't mind. Not sure what i've siad in the past now thiugh, you have me thinking! My best friend has been my bf since I was 14, we're now 35 and 36, she's more of a sister and best mate rolled into 1.

You are clearly really good at friendship TC - it's where Lottie gets her charisma from! I'm not sure if you are so good at it because it is important to you, or vice versa, iyswim.

My oldest friends are from childhood, and both feel like sisters to me, and say so themselves. they don't have children but are godparents to my two (in the strictly secular sense of course!)