Type 3: Perfect Friendship

Aristotle says:

 "Only the friendship of those who are good, and similar in their goodness, is perfect. For these people each alike wish good for the other....and it is those who desire the good of friends for the friends sake that are most truly friends because each loves the other for what he is and not for any other reason"

So these friendships last as long as both remain good. 

The reason why good people are friends with other good people? They both express the same good behaviors each of them admires.

Generally, once a person becomes good they remain that way; hence, if two good people meet, it's expected they'll form a lifelong friendship and it's unlikely that such a friendship would ever dissolve like the capricious friendships of pleasure and utility.

The catch is that these friendships are so rare, some truly good people may never experience it in a lifetime as Cicero once mentioned.

How many of these friends do you have?  How many of your friends are truly happy when good things happen to you? Conversely,  you should ask yourself if you're sincerely happy when good things happen to your friends.

Type 2: Friends in Pleasure

There are fewer of these friendships in our lives. 

These are the friends we have in which we share various kinds of pleasure. It is  the people we play golf with, drink at the pub with or sometimes have sex with.

Again, in some cases, we may not even like being around these people beyond the pleasurable activity. How about those drinking buddies at the pub or some teammates on your sports team?

Since our pleasures change based on life's circumstances, these friendships only last as long as both parties enjoy the pleasurable activity and once one party no longer finds pleasure in the activity - that's it - the friendship starts to fade and each goes their separate way.
 
If both knew it was a friendship based on pleasure,  the separation is amicable; however, if one party thought the friendship went beyond pleasure,  things usually get emotional and animosity results.

Ask yourself if you or another in your life experienced this kind of relationship turmoil due to a misunderstood friendship type.

How many people in your life fall into this category?

Is it true that you drifted apart from someone, once interest waned in the common pleasure you shared?



Stay tuned for the third and highest form of friendship.  This is the kind Cicero said was very rare and that few people get to experience even once in their life. It is also a friendship that only good men and women can possess while  bad individuals are excluded from it.

The Three Kinds of Friends

There are only three kinds of friendship. Ask yourself if you recognize these in your life. Feel free to tally them up and let readers know in the comment section below how many fit into each category.

Type 1: Friends of Utility

These are the people we interact with most often where we both get some kind of mutual benefit from our relationship (Some Facebookers, coworkers, clients, neighbours, etc) . In some cases we may not even like these people but they are strangely still considered friends. The bulk of our friendships exist in this class. 

Since mutual benefits change based on life's circumstances, these friendships only last so long as mutual benefit exist and once one party no longer benefits - that's it - the friendship ends and each goes their separate ways.

These friends take pleasure in each other's company only in so far as they have hopes of advantage from it.
 
If you both knew it was a friendship of utility the separation is amicable; however, if one party thought the friendship went beyond utility things usually get emotional and animosity results.

Ask yourself if you or another in your life experienced this kind of friendship strife due to a misunderstood friendship type.

Stay tuned for the second and slightly deeper type of friendship.