The types of friendship and social media

Friendship seems to be a concept as old as the world itself. Aristotle (384–322 BC) spoke to us about friendship and invited us to reflect on our relationships. Today, social media serve as a means of friendship and interaction. Do they overturn reality, or do they prove the timeless nature of this concept?

Each person shapes the concept of friendship in their mind through experience, based on circumstances, qualities, and behaviors.

Aristotle mentions that friendship can be formed for the sake of pleasure, usefulness, virtue, or superiority.

The virtuous person is both pleasant and beneficial, while the friendship of superiority refers to relationships such as that between a parent and a child.

Without the other types of relationships being negative, true friendship is based on communication and mutual enjoyment. We can observe that a genuine friendship cannot be formed among many people. Equality is also a general characteristic of friendship, and in relationships of superiority, it leans more toward equality in quantity rather than equality in value (a trait of justice).

In the relationship with a parent, Aristotle says, there are different motives and a distinctive kind of interaction. However, if what is proper is given, that is acceptable. Love, he writes, is considered the virtue of friends.

To love someone as they truly are. As a social being, a person experiences these different types of relationships throughout life. They meet people, collaborate, observe, have fun, and find enjoyment. Yet, not everyone responds in the same way within these types of friendships. After all, we are people of different characters and diverse personalities, each carrying our own uniqueness.

Personally, if you manage to understand the relationship and interact appropriately, everything can hold some value. But of course, what could be more magical than experiencing the uniqueness of that fleeting sense of completeness — true friendship. Something that, I believe, does not negate disagreements or quarrels, but rather something magical that gives you the drive to move forward, to perceive, to understand life, others, and yourself. Simple words to describe this kind of magic.

Once, I saw a T-shirt worn by a random passerby — one of those people who answer my questions without ever knowing it. The print read:

“Friends are those who try to discover themselves together.”

Not that this phrase reveals the full “benefit” or virtue of friendship, but it certainly allows the mind to wander through ideas such as the pursuit of virtues, companionship, and the journey toward fulfillment.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “Show me your friend, and I’ll tell you who you are,” referring to the reflection of oneself through the choice of friends. Perhaps, however, a more realistic version today would be, “Show me your true friend, and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Nevertheless, the different types of friendship each hold their own value, and by knowing your other friends and understanding the kind of relationship you have with them, one might be able to discover aspects of your personality.

On social media, we often end up counting hundreds of “friends,” which can mean many things. What I ultimately take from this, however, is that it represents only a small sample of the different kinds of friendship we’ve discussed. Social media is simply a medium — it does not negate friendship. If used wisely, it can even add value. On the other hand, it hides traps that can easily capture our minds and hearts (such as comparison and judgment).

Friendship is a timeless concept of life. The means may change, but we can only hope they are used wisely. A moral person is careful with their friendships, and through proper guidance, they move toward virtue — perhaps accompanied by something even more magical: true friendship.