The definition and value of friendship

(Second in a series looking at Dunbar’s book ‘Friends’ https://jotsandscribbles.blog/2023/09/18/introduction-to-friends-by-robin-dunbar/)

Robin Dunbar looks at friendship through an evolutionary lens. Since we invest so much time and brain capacity into our friendships, they must bring us some benefit. And therefore he sometimes defines friendship in terms of the people who care for each other and will help each other out. “In many ways, these relationships are all about a sense of obligation an exchange of favours—the people you wouldn’t feel embarrassed about asking for a favour and whom you wouldn’t think twice about helping out.”

He also gives a few other definitions of who he is talking about as friends (as opposed to acquaintances).

“Friendship, however, is a two way process that requires both parties to be reasonably accommodating and tolerant of each other, to be willing to spare time for each other.”

“Genuine friends are the sort of people you would to spend time with if you had the chance, and will be willing to make the effort to do so. You know their names—not just their first names but their surnames as well. You know where they live (they are in your address book), and you know all about their immediate family, where they have lived in the past and the jobs they have done. Casual acquaintances, and I include the some of the people you work with, don’t belong in this group because they’re not the sort of people you would go out of your way for; you wouldn’t make an effort to have them as part of your more intimate social world.”

Friendship turns out to be incredibly important and positive not only for immediate practical help, but also for health and mental well being. And it really needs to because it takes an immense amount of our time and brain power to manage our friendships. “The bottom line is that our social world is by far the most complex thing in the universe precisely because it is so dynamic and in constant flux, and keeping track of that and managing it is very demanding in information processing terms.”

So friendship is expensive but valuable. On a practical level, good friendships are one of the biggest factors for long term health and wellbeing. “The big surprise was that it was the social measures that most influenced your chances of surviving, and especially so after heart attacks and strokes. … Scoring high on these [social measures] increase your chances of surviving by as much as 50%. Only giving up smoking had anything like the same effect. It will no doubt get me into trouble with the medical profession, but it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that you can eat as much as you like, drink as much alcohol as you want, slob about as much as you fancy, fail to do exercises and live in as polluted an atmosphere as you can find, and you will barely notice the difference. But having no friends and or not being involved in community activities will dramatically affect how long you live.”

Friendship boosts the immune system: “they found that loneliness among freshman students resulted in a reduced immune response when the students were given a flu vaccine.” It also helps prevent and recover from depression: “membership of social groups is both protective against developing depression and curative of existing depression.”

Both the value and complexity of friendships are things we can easily fail to notice. The Bible notes both, and often brings out the practical elements of friendship:

Proverbs 17:17 A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

Proverbs 18:24 One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.