More than 200 years ago, British philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft wrote, “Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is founded on principle, and cemented by time.” ¹

Friendship, in many ways, is the purest of all relationships. Our family ties are not by choice and are often complicated. Our romantic ties are emotional and messy, hovering between the territories of friendship and family. Work and community relationships are a mix of obligation and self-interest; they enhance our lives, but usually not at the deepest level.

Friendship, in its highest form, is a blend of shared interests, a shared vision, and mutual respect. The longer it lasts, the richer it becomes. All of us want it, but it’s surprisingly difficult for many of us to find it. “For a wish for friendship arises swiftly, but friendship itself does not,” Aristotle noted. Not much has changed in the last two millennia.

If true friendship – the making of “forever friends” – is something we all long for, why is it so difficult to achieve? (For many people it seems even more difficult than finding a romantic relationship).

There is no simple, final answer to that question, but there is the beginning of an answer, and I believe that Aristotle figured it out back in the 3rd century B.C.E. In the centuries in between we’ve gone back and forth between forgetting it and stumbling across it again in some form or another. Some of us get it sooner, some later, and sadly, some never get it.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way if we’re willing to put in the effort.

Aristotle’s 3 Types of Friendship

The starting point is with the word itself: friendship. What does it mean?

Could the problem for so many of us be that we have a certain idea of what friendship is? True to his methodical fashion, Aristotle proposed that there are three types of friendship in this world, and the problem is when we focus too much on the wrong type.

To form the best and most lasting friendships, we need to understand ourselves first. We need to understand what we are actually seeking and looking for, beyond merely having a “friend.”

The three types of friendship, according to Aristotle, are based on the three following factors:

• Utility
• Pleasure
• Virtue

They may sound like strange words today in connection with “friendship,” but you’ll hopefully recognize each of these categories and their qualities in your own experience.

Friendships of Utility

Friendships of utility tend to be tit for tat. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” We often disguise it with the term “networking.”

Many years ago, I made the mistake of saying “yes” to a date with someone. As he added my name to his phone, I could see that his list of contacts was almost as long as a yellow pages directory. “I like to keep people around,” is what I remember him saying in so many words. “I’ll never know when I need them.” Needless to say, we didn’t stay friends for long.

Where mutual respect and reciprocity are involved, friendships of utility can make sense. Certain people can connect us to other people, places, and opportunities. On their own, however, friendships of utility hardly make for a satisfying existence. They don’t satisfy the need for fulfillment and companionship.

Sadly, some people are so shortsighted that they put all their effort into friendships of utility because they value external success more than spending time with another person for its own sake. Cicero saw this in his time:

But most people not only recognize nothing as good in our life unless it is profitable, but look upon friends as so much stock, caring most for those by whom they hope to make most profit. Accordingly they never possess that most beautiful and most spontaneous friendship which must be sought solely for itself without any ulterior object. ²

We may desire “real friends,” but some selflessness is required first. Many people never graduate past this first type of friendship.

Friendships of Pleasure

Have you ever wanted to be friends with someone because you found them entertaining or exciting to be around?

Perhaps you convinced yourself there was some real connection between you when in reality you simply found them fun and “interesting.” You had no idea what their life looked like behind closed doors after a long day at work, and you never saw them ugly cry in a moment of insecurity.

Aristotle would refer to this as a “friendship of pleasure,” and you can think of it as the emotional equivalent of “friendships of utility” (although, because it’s emotional in nature, we might confuse it with something deeper).

“He [or she] who is loved in each case is not loved for himself but only insofar as he is useful or pleasant,” Aristotle explains, going on to add: “These sorts of friendships, then, are easily dissolved when the people involved do not remain the same as they were. For if they are no longer pleasant or useful, those who love them will cease to do so.” ³

It’s a sad lesson many of us have learned from experience. We want to be seen as we truly are and loved for our own sake, but this does not come easily to most people. Nor is it easy for us.

Friendships of Virtue

That leaves us with the highest, most rewarding, and most lasting of all friendships: friendships of virtue.

Unlike utility or pleasure, a friendship of virtue requires selflessness on our part, in addition to a shared outlook or system of values:

But complete friendship is the friendship of those who are good and alike in point of virtue. For such people wish in similar fashion for the good things for each other insofar as they are good, and they are good in themselves. But those who wish for the good things for their friends, for their friends’ sake, are friends most of all, since they are disposed in this way in themselves and not incidentally. ⁴

The best friendships are the ones in which we want the best for our friends because we have the right values and the right understanding about not only what is best for them, but we have a mature and deep perspective on life in general, and the things that matter most.

To Have the Best Friends, We Must Be the Best People

I believe that when Aristotle says that “complete friendship” means that the people in the friendship “are good and alike in point of virtue”, he is referring not only to common values and interests but to the importance of having all the qualities we want in someone else. To have the best kind of friend, you must be the best kind of person you can be.

If you don’t know yourself and the things you are passionate about and convicted of, how can you possibly expect others to recognize those qualities in you?

This doesn’t just mean in terms of kindness and generosity, but also when it comes to personal development. Lasting friendships – friendships of virtue – arise when we have thoughts, beliefs, and values that we’ve deeply cultivated. Or in the words of C.S. Lewis, “truths” that we’ve discovered:

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one’….

In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? – Or at least, ‘Do you care about the same truth?’ The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance, can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer. ⁵

Note that final sentence: our friends need not agree with us on every point, only share our commitment to the issue in question. The fact that we care about something is what matters, and that we continue to care about that thing.

If you don’t know yourself and the things you are passionate about and convicted of, how can you possibly expect others to recognize those qualities in you? Cicero echoes Aristotle, Lewis and Mary Wollstonecraft when he says, “It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity.”

If you want the truest of friends, forever friends, ask yourself what your values, passions, and convictions are. If you’re not sure, find out. Once you add unselfishness and open-heartedness to the mix, you’ll be well on your way to finding the most enduring friendships that life has to offer.

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Read Next: The “Unecessity” of Friendship →

1. From Vindication of the Rights of Women.
2. From his essay On Friendship
3. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins. University of Chicago Press, 2012.
4. From Nicomachean Ethics.
5. From The Four Loves.