Friendship Types

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Types of Friends
There is an internal nudge in people that compels them to live in a society where they can freely interact and share with others. This has been in existence since time immemorial. Notably, the various social relations among people forms friendship of different natures. Friends are undeniable a result of a mutual affection between two or more people. Friendship is as a result of sharing a strong interpersonal bond. There exist different types of friendships as defined by different scholars whereby some agree while others disagree on its precise nature. However, Aristotle considers three main different types of friends. His classification of friendship may not seem revolutionary but he makes quite insightful points that are shrewd and profound enough to manifest the truth about the nature of man as a social animal. According to him, human beings are naturally bound to make three types of friends including utility friends, pleasure or delight friends, and virtuous friends.
The first and most common type, known as utility friends is characterized by people who are in a relationship only because they want to benefit from one another. The friends involved in this kind of friendship do not hold any affection for the other because they are purely based on exchange of benefits. By nature, such friends are selfishly motivated and self-regarding such that because these friends mutually benefit, the friendship dies when the perceived satisfaction or benefits are not met or go unfulfilled. A good example of such a friendship that is based on utility may include business partners whereby a mechanic and his/her client are friends because they both benefit. That is, the mechanic wants the client for business and the client wants the mechanic to help him/her for his/her car’s repair. In addition, two classmates can be friends because they enjoy better learning while studying together. Similarly, in a workplace, two coworkers can be friends because they mutually benefit by working together and delivering results with less difficulty. Friends of this nature can be summarized in one saying that says “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.” Therefore, this means that once one participant’s back stops itching and no longer needs a back-scratch, they no longer need the other and this means that the friendship ceases to be because there no longer exists that mutual benefit between them.
The second type of friends as explicated by Aristotle is known as pleasure or delight friends and it involves people who associate with others because of sensual pleasures. These pleasures include but not limited to physical, sexual, and general pleasure/delight. This type of friends is common among the youth. Just like utility friends, delight or pleasure seeking friends are also self-regarding and only enter into a relationship because they are self-centered and therefore would rather stay without friends if they do not get the pleasures or delight they seek. A good example may involve two friends whereby one friend considers the other to be a crazy friend and therefo...