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What does friendship mean to you?
the meaning of friendship
Friendship is a privilege that shouldn’t be underestimated. Simply put, good friends are good for you. Social interactions trigger all those feel good vibes in your brain’s endorphin system.
There’s actual science behind this! If you have enjoyable friendships and an active social life, you’re less likely to develop serious illnesses later in life and more likely to live long. Your friendships literally shape your brain. They help you recover faster, think more clearly and even feel less pain. Friendships may even be more effective at extending your life span than exercise!
The crucial point here is the nature of those relationships, and how they make you feel loved, cared for and listened to.
Here’s what science says:
Friendships can be a stronger painkiller than morphine and fulfilling relationships increase your pain tolerance (Johnson and Dunbar, 2016)
Friendships help keep your mind sharp and reduce your risk of dementia (Holwerda et al., 2014)
Having friends can help you better cope with stress and reduce your cortisol (stress hormone) levels (Ozbay et al., 2017)
The quality of your friendships impacts cardiovascular diseases, your blood pressure, cancer recovery and wound healing (Umberson and Montez, 2010)
Your social circle may shield you against depression, boost your self-esteem, and give support when the rain starts to fall (Harris and Orth, 2019)
Good friends keep you from doing things that are bad for you, like smoking and heavy drinking (I’ll leave the late nights out in the middle here) (Ong et al., 2016)
Distance doesn't have to dampen a friendship (Griffin, 2006)
For women, friendships are more important than family (Chopik, 2017)
What does friendship mean? Ask ten people and you’ll get ten different answers, and that’s the beauty of it. Friendship is a word that holds everything from laughter at midnight to quiet support when life falls apart.
If you search for friendship definition, you’ll find phrases like “a relationship of mutual affection” or “the state of being friends”. Technically true, but that hardly captures the depth of it. Real friendship is about being seen, accepted and held through all your phases.
As poet David Whyte wrote in his book Consolations: “the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
If you’re looking for a description of friendship, imagine this: Two people sitting on the floor, eating leftovers, talking about life. The light shifts, the years go by, but the connection stays. That’s friendship.
Defining Friendship: Beyond Words and Labels
If we tried to define friendship, we’d find it’s both ordinary and extraordinary. It’s the text that makes you laugh out loud in a crowded room. It’s the person who remembers how you take your coffee. It’s shared silence that isn’t awkward.
In scientific terms, friendship is a social bond, a connection that keeps your brain happy, your heart steady and your life longer. But emotionally, it’s an invisible thread that weaves comfort through our days.
So when we ask what is the real meaning of friendship, maybe the best definition is this: being the witness to someone’s life and letting them be a witness to yours. It’s loyalty, laughter and sometimes a little chaos. It means showing up even when it’s inconvenient. It means cheering for each other’s dreams, forgiving the bad moods and sharing the celebrations as much as a the grief, on a journey now shared.
HERE'S WHAT YOU SAID
A selection of our favorite definitions and meaning of friendship that gave us all the feels.
We asked our Instagram followers what Friendship meant to them. Here's what they said.
Friendship is choice.
A choice to love someone not because of obligation.
It’s deciding to trust and extend yourself to be as accountable to them as they are to you.
Friendship is a celebration of your similarities and differences to others, and loving them for the ways your minds meet and the way they are astoundingly different.
Friendship is like the first sun after a stormy night, the fresh air when it rains and the starry lake in a cloudless night.
Friendship means to expand your family and let your heart grow into a garden of sunlight, it means to face the world and its ugly face together and to always have backup when you face your own demons.
Friendship means hope and to have a home that comes with you wherever you go.
To me, friendship is like ice-cream. Sounds stupid, but hear me out.
When I was about 5 years old, vanilla ice-cream was probably the best gift my tastebuds had ever received. Just plain ol vanilla ice-cream.
Plus it was like we had a never-ending supply of the stuff. But at that point I had no idea how incredibly diverse the world of ice-cream was.
Peanuts??? In ice-cream??? FRUIT??? Wow. Crazy.
Then when I was 7, I tried mango ice-cream for the first time.
Let me tell you, it was like my mouth had met it's soulmate. That perfect mix of sweet n smooth just clicked with me.
The way I see it, when you're so young and you're so new to the world, you're happy to be friends with everyone.
But there's always those few pivotal moments that define who you wanna surround yourself with and who you wanna be.
I've tried endless amounts of ice-cream flavours and of course I like some more than others, just as I've met endless amounts of people and like some more than others.
Sometimes I discover a new flavour that I obsess over, but then grow tired of.
But mango is always the flavour I go back to.
we asked ourselves and you
Friendship is like a mountain.
Stays there, is there when you need support, beautiful and endless.
Though when you think on it. To reach the top you have to put effort and dedication into it.
When you’ve climbed the mountain the view and pay off is very rewarding and amazing.
Real friendship means you can keep it real with me. When you don't have to go around the truth in fear of hurting my feelings but telling me straight up in the most loving way you know how.
Friendship is when you love someone and think about them no matter how busy life gets.
When they make you laugh so hard you pee your pants (no joke this has happened to me too many times).
Friendship is not caring how you look or feel because your bestie will take care of you no matter what.
True friendship also means you have no shame, whether I'm talking too loud or dancing too hard you're right by my side getting turnt with me haha.
True friendship to me is when you know the real me the chaotic me and still choose to love me ⚡️
Friendship is that person that loves you endlessly, even when you're wrong, who shows you the right path and patiently waits till you find your way. It’s a forever kind of thing.
Friendship is someone in your corner no matter the distance, time, and circumstance.
Friendship is giving a part of myself to the people I care about most, in exchange for pieces of them.
My friends, new and old, continue to shape me into who I am today - for the best.
Those pieces stay with us always, and keep us connected through time and distance.
Friendship to me is the ghost on your front porch, no one can see them but you know they're there to keep you company if you make time to sit with them on the steps.
I miss all of my best friends constantly because they all live overseas and we're either traveling to and fro to see each other, or we're dealing with timezones when we voice call. I'm always calling or texting them when I'm awake, they keep me company and fill my days with laughter, lending an ear when I need someone to listen.
It's okay if no one else sees my ghosts.
Friendship is something personal, something you feel and keep with you for a lifetime.
WHAT DOES FRIENDSHIP MEAN TO YOU?
Some friendships live in old photos and inside jokes. Others live on your skin, in jewelry that carries both your stories.
Imagine a necklace with two gemstones: your birthstone and your friend’s. Maybe yours is a soft purple tanzanite and theirs a brighter amethyst. Between them, a small opal for the month you met, the sparkle of “remember when?” frozen in metal.
Or a pair of mismatched earrings, with your birthstones paired in different designs, because friendship isn’t about matching perfectly, it’s about fitting strangely well.
Maybe it’s a ring stack that grows over time, one gem for every shared milestone: the first road trip, the heartbreaks survived, the night you danced barefoot under the wrong moon phase.
Designing friendship jewelry is like bottling an inside joke in gold. You pick the gems, the metal, the mischief. A sapphire for their calm, a citrine for your chaos, maybe a tiny diamond for that night you swore you’d never drink tequila again. Proof your friendship survived the weirdest plotlines. Then wear it like a secret handshake you can’t forget.
References
Chopik, William J. (2017). Associations among Relational Values, Support, Health, and Well-Being across The Adult Lifespan. Pers Relationship, 24: 408-422.
Griffin, E. A. (2006). A first look at communication theory. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Harris, Michelle & Orth, Ulrich. (2019). The link between self-esteem and social relationships: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 10.1037/pspp0000265.
Holwerda, T.J., Deeg, D.J., Beekman, A.T., et al. (2014). Feelings of loneliness, but not social isolation, predict dementia onset: results from the Amsterdam Study of the Elderly (AMSTEL). J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2014;85(2):135-142.
Johnson, K., Dunbar, R. (2016). Pain tolerance predicts human social network size. Sci Rep 6, 25267.
Ong, Anthony & Uchino, Bert & Wethington, Elaine. (2015). Loneliness and Health in Older Adults: A Mini-Review and Synthesis. Gerontology. 62. 10.1159/000441651.
Ozbay, F., Johnson, D. C., Dimoulas, E., Morgan, C. A., Charney, D., & Southwick, S. (2007). Social support and resilience to stress: from neurobiology to clinical practice. Psychiatry (Edgmont (Pa. : Township)), 4(5), 35–40.
Umberson, D., & Montez, J. K. (2010). Social relationships and health: a flashpoint for health policy. Journal of health and social behavior, 51 Suppl (Suppl), S54–S66.