How do you define a "Friend"

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I define a "Friend" as someone I interact with outside of work, school, or any event that forces people to interact. Meaning I willingly interact with this person or this person willingly interacts with me.

People I only talk to in events like school or work I would call "associates, colleagues," I've also had "roommates" who were close to being friends, but we did not interact outside of the apartment.

By this definition, I've only had two friends in my life that I met during middle school. I knew one of them for only two years. The other I've lost regular contact with since graduating high school, I send him happy birthday messages once a year, that is the extent of my social life.

My social life: Birthday message I send once a year to an old friend.
My social life middle-high school: Friend comes over to play games a couple times a month. I go to his birthday party
My social life before middle school: Family only.

I don't do social media, I don't chat on video games, I don't go around commenting on youtube channels (though I do read), I didn't even post on forums, at least until I found wrongplanet.

I suppose I'm trying to understand more about "Friends" and how people make them and how people regard them as I don't have much experience with this.

Aspie types usually just seem to get to be targets ,, not friends . sorry , have had maybe 3 friends in 61 years .all are passed on now.. very strange ,how i outlived them.. thought that quite frankly would have been impossible. now i claim to have one , maybe but cannot tell yet if am only a target for her.. very bad famiy she comes from .. and known her over 2 years am a slow learner on friends.
when it comes to hard situations most times inmy life have only been able to count on myserlf .
my mum cames through for me once when was still a teen.
In a extraordinarily bad trauma. dad was kinda of a friend.
hope you have bettter luck than me.

You make me remember high school (I try to forget high school), I was teased a lot (I didn't actually realize I was being teased at the time) initially, but I think they got bored after a while so the teasing stopped.

I have a hard time deciding if I was bullied or not, I might be very dense. Maybe if I was a weaker person or more concerned with social stuff, I'd have been traumatized, but my teasing never rose to the level of violence so I shrugged it off.
In fact, I did more damage to myself than others could hope to do to me, I was an awkward little high schooler who was an idiot and did some stupid things.

Considering most of the friends I've had, they all had many of these features in common...

... actively practicing generosity and hospitality
... attitudes of charity, mercy, and forgiveness
... concern for each other’s well-being
... congenial, upbeat dispositions
... shared recreational interests
... similar back-stories
... similar fields of study
... similar incomes
... similar levels of education
... similar moral values
... similar talents

This isn't an "all-or-nothing" list, but it seems the more of these features our friendships had, the closer friends we were, and the longer the friendships lasted.

I personally wouldn't call it "bullying" unless it involved physical violence and/or theft and/or getting you in trouble and/or actual harm of any kind, or threat thereof, beyond just teasing. I was teased a lot in gradeschool, but I don't feel that it rose to the level of bullying. I wasn't afraid of the other kids; I just didn't like them and I knew that they didn't like me.

No verbal abuse is still abuse.

I find that my friends are people I get along well with regardless of our backgrounds.

I have friends with different income to me, different upbringings, but we enjoy spending time together.

Friends are people you talk about the serious things on your life with. How you really are. Not just the fun things. And then you go and have fun to cheer each other up.

Same here. Add:

Age differences do not matter.
Trust and feeling safe around my friends are very important to me. I need a long time to open up. Most people that I have met did not have the patience to wait for me.

I have 3 close friends, know them 30 or more years. Another close friend that I had for nearly 40 years died 1,5 years ago, there is still a hole in the world where he used to be. There is one person I really like and who might become a close friend in the future. And then there was someone I talked with a lot, I thought we would be close friends but that was only my wishful thinking.

Other than with my close friends, I do not really have a circle of friends. There are some people that I would call acquaintances, I interact with them but I do not talk about serious things with them. They come and go as life circumstances change. I remember a little bit about their life, what they told me about their job, kids, home ... but I have a hard time remembering their names.

Is not murdering someone still murder?

Is not murdering someone still murder?[/quote
painfully poignant

Yes, but I wasn't discussing the word "abuse." I was discussing the more specific word "bully," which, according to dictionary.com and according to the Wikipedia article on bullying, specifically involves intimidation.

The teasing I experienced in gradeschool got bad enough by sixth grade that I asked my parents to put me in a different school. But it would have been a whole lot worse -- and terrifying -- if the other kids had not only teased me but also gotten physically violent, stolen my lunch, torn pages out of my textbooks, or threatened to do any of the above.

Those are the kinds of things I think of as "bullying." In the support groups I attend, there are people who experienced those things as children.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 03 Feb 2020, 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I view anyone who actively seeks out my company and interacts with me outside of school, work, etc. But then again, this is from the same person who had absolutely no concept of "acquaintance" until seventh grade and until then, viewed everyone she'd ever met a friend unless they proved otherwise, so my perspective may be a little skewed.

A Friend to me would people you would hang out with outside of School/work.I also describe a friend as someone that you are able to discuss your personal issues with.A friend is someone who's always there during the good times and the bad times.A friend is also someone you talk often;definitely more than acquaintances.A friend also enjoys my company as well.Basically if someone talks and hangs out with me outside of a Professional stetting and enjoys my company,I would consider that person to a friend.

By that definition, I guess I haven't actually been bullied (unless my dad counts) probably for one reason - why bother with intimidation techniques when I'm already so timid and submissive to start with? I did, however, get teased, and taken advantage of.

Close friends are ones which I am comfortable to be around if I should unmask. Friends are people I know that I would usually naturally mask around where if I noticed myself unmasking, I would try to correct it.
Some people (Like some family friends) are sort of half way where I may let a mask slip if I am tired and not worry too much about it..