What is a friend?
(Please excuse the introverted home-schooled kid. And the lack of paragraph breaks from the mobile app.) I am sure that the answer to this question differs for different people, so please each of you answer your own way! I am interested in comparing multiple answers, whether they be similar or very different. What do you consider to be the different "levels" of friendly relationships, and what criteria relate to which level(s)? I don't have proper titles for everything, but mine (currently) starts with how we meet: for example, classmate, coworker, online associate, etc. Through a short amount of time interacting with each other, this usually progresses to "friendly associate." And then, as we interact for periods of time over a while (weeks/months/over a year), they sort of progress to "someone who I would probably want to buy a treat for sometime or help out a bit if they are in a rough spot, but I won't talk a lot about myself yet," but I have not yet had a relationship advance any further. (I am very slow to trust.) How have your relationships advanced? Were you actively trying to make more meaningful relationships, or do they just take a while?
Also, what is usually expected between people as "friends?" Does it depend on the context of the friendship?
As someone struggling with friendships myself I can only tell you what friends look like for me: they are people I am allowed to be around and can be quite fun but I never got so close to someone that we really knew what to do or would meet in our free time a lot. I don't even know if they are friends or some people from school I get along with pretty well. What I saw from others what a friend is, is that: they do so much together and have fun and trust each other. But it always is mutual, when one has a problem they help each other and they do things in their free time. So, sorry, no great experiences but maybe that is what you wanted to know?
