Page 70 - CROSS CULTURE

A. The Meaning of Friendship Relationship

The terms "friend" and "friendship" are used to refer to a
wide variety of interpersonal connections, including long-lasting

bonds characterized by great affection and loyalty, someone you

just met at a music festival or sporting event. Even in our day to

day lives we can make friends anytime at work, school, etc.

As Graham Allan (Allan, 1996) noted, our first issue when

considering the concept of friendship is the absence of clearly
defined and socially accepted standards for what constitutes a

friend. While we might refer to someone as a friend in one

context, it could be inappropriate in another. We could just have

a very vague idea of what friendship means. One of the first

scholars to point out the difficulty in defining the term
"friendship" was Beverley Fehr, who said, "Everyone

understands what friendship is until asked to explain it. Almost

as many social scientists have studied friendship as there are

definitions of it.

According to Daniel J. Hruschka (Hruschka, 2010), a social

connection that resembles friendship is one in which the partners

help one another out as much as they can when one of them is in

need, with the conduct being partially motivated by the pleasant
feelings they share. In Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Helmm writes that fundamentally, friendship entails a special

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