From the words of Muhammad: “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” Since a very young age no one had sat me down and explained what friendship, is but regardless I intuitively understood that I am a relational being and friendships are a necessity to help experience life in its fullest, and I believe that this is true for each and every one of us.

Research has been made into friendships and their role in our lives, and different authors define friendships differently. Some say that it is “a clear, trusted, and confident feeling”. Others define friendship a bit more comprehensively stating that it is “a voluntary interdependence between two people over time, that is intended to facilitate the socio-emotional goals of the participants, and may involve varying types and degrees of companionship, intimacy, affection, and mutual assistance” . Friendship is defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as a “state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people” . All of these definitions show that friendship is a “two-way relationship recognized by both parties of the relationship and is distinguished by a link or tie of reciprocated affection. It is not required and carries no legal obligations  to one another, and is typically fair in nature and almost always characterised by companionship and shared activities.”

Recent studies back up the notion that friends are important aspects of a person’s life because the presence of friendship is related to a high level of life satisfaction. This could be explained by the beneficial roles that friends are assigned. According to a study, friends are found to provide companionship (along with increased social trust and less stress), closeness, and support, all of which boost an individual’s life satisfaction. 

According to data from 148 studies, those with greater social connections are 50% more likely to survive! In other words, a lack of friends is associated with a higher risk of death, regardless of age, gender, health status, or reason of death.

Even when a lot of research has been done till this day concerning the role that friendships play in our lives there are still dynamics of friendship that people have not yet fully understood or mastered especially taking into account that each one of us is different. In my lifetime I have had difficulties with keeping up friendships when I have left a place that initially connected us, or gave us an opportunity to constantly see each other for example, school, church or organisation.  One of my friends, Oyama Comba speaks on how the dynamics of relationships change after an argument, or when one party had taken offence on a certain event that took place, she goes on to speak about the understanding of how different each one of us is and why it is needful of us to customise our interaction with each of our friends, bearing in mind that they are different and experience life differently and therefore would require a certain level of grace from us during these times.

In our pursuit of friends it is necessary for us to understand that it is not just about the number of friends that one has but rather the quality of the friendship. This is even true in the celebrity world, where one would think that celebrities have a lot of friends.Oprah Winfrey publicly admits to having only three close friends. Selena Gomez, an Instagram star and singer, shares the same thing: she only has three solid friends to whom she thinks she can confide everything. According to actor Matthew McConaughey, “I’ve only got a few really close friends in the 28 years of acting that I keep up with all the time.”

Friendships form a huge part of who we are. One does not have to be a social butterfly to get the rewards of good friends. In truth, the most gratifying and long-lasting relationships are those few friends with whom you feel completely yourself. These are the people who can truly enhance and enrich your life.

The strong desire to belong transcends all cultural, economic, and political boundaries. Friends provide us with the company that makes life meaningful, therefore despite the dynamics and complexities of friendships, it is still something to aspire for and hold dear.

This was written as part of the Fundza Fellowship Programme.