Friendships In Relationships

Just as all relationship types, friendship develops in stages: acquaintanceship, buildup, continuation, deterioration, and ending. Friendships do not necessarily move through all of the stages. For instance, attraction and communication are factors that help move a friendship from acquaintanceship to buildup. People often underrate the importance of friendships, but they are strongly correlated with life satisfaction. Healthy friendships are linked with increased coping ability and greater self-esteem. Studies have validated maintaining at least one confidant throughout later life. By having a support network of at least one person, people can significantly reduce their risk of stress-emergent adverse health effects. Research has shown that …show more content…
Women tend to have a great quantity of friends compared to their male counterparts. Additionally, women tend to share more information with their friends and have greater intimacy. Both of these factors can potentially explain the longer life expectancy of women. Men are have a fewer number of friends compared to women. Their friendships are based on shared interests and activates. For the most part, these interests have some element of competition to them, such as basketball. However, social interaction, not winning/losing are the ordinarily the primary goal of the friendship. Societal pressure on men to appear brave and strong could be a reason as to the reduced intimacy observed in male friendships. Cross-gender friendships have significant benefits for the male friend. Because women are more comfortable with vulnerability, it is socially acceptable for the man to open up, confide in, and establish intimacy. This allows the male friend to reap some of the benefits ordinarily seen in female friendships. Such benefits are not seen on the female side of the relationship. Additionally, men will over-perceive and women under-perceive sexual interest in the friendship. These patterns for cross-sex friendships are observed across …show more content…
Cole (2000) conducted a study interviewing single women in their thirties. The first group suffered distress from being single and felt like they failed some personal milestone. These women were more vulnerable to suffer from depression and anxiety. These women want to be settled down with a family. The second group had conflicting feelings. At certain points, they desired marriage and at other points they were content with the independence that comes with being single. The third group of women had a very positive self-image and was happy with their quality of