Friendship is one of those words that gets used so widely it almost stops meaning anything. This prompt asks you to write your private working definition. What you actually expect, what you'd never ask, what makes someone a friend in your sense — and not just a person you know well.
Your definition is what your real friendships rise or fall on.
Writing your own definition of friendship lets you stop measuring your relationships against a vague ideal. It also reveals whether your definition matches how you currently behave as a friend, and whether the people you call friends are operating by the same definition. Mismatches in friendship definitions are at the root of many slow disappointments.
Useful in seasons of friendship drift, after a misunderstanding with a close friend, at the start of a new chapter where you'll need to make new friends, or in seasons when you're tempted to confuse 'a lot of contacts' with 'enough closeness'.
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Draft your definition in plain words, not slogans.
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List three things you most need from a close friend.
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Note one thing you don't expect, that the world sometimes does.
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Test the definition against your closest current friendship.
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Choose one small way to live the definition this week.
Other ways to ask the same thing
“What is friendship, in your own working definition?”
“What do you actually mean when you call someone a friend?”
“What's the friendship you live by, not the one you'd post about?”
It's tempting to write a sentimental definition that doesn't reflect what you actually want. Stay specific. 'Being there in hard times' is true but vague; specify how. 'Honesty' is true but vague; specify what kind. The more specific, the more usable.
Definition: friendship, for me, is the right to be quiet together without explaining. Three needs: to be replied to within roughly a week; to be told honest things about myself when I've gone off course; to be invited to the small ordinary stuff, not only big events. Don't expect: daily contact. Closest current friendship: matches well; we don't see each other often but the quiet is real. Live the definition this week: I'll invite N. for a walk this Saturday — small, ordinary, no agenda. That's friendship in my dictionary.