Friendship is unlike a romantic relationship it doesn’t evoke strong emotions, less possessiveness and jealousy and non- committal. People seems agree having friends is always better than having none. But do we really need friends?
The emergence of modern means of communication and how today’s the society structured seem to render the traditional ways of friendship obsolete. Many social activities can be obtained from online and we don’t need to leave the house in order to interact with people anymore. And we’re no longer limited to the people in our immediate environment, we are more likely to find someone online than offline. Online dating platforms means we don’t need to attend social gatherings anymore to find a mate. We can also find the quick and cheap entertainment through online video games which many people prefer over a meetup. So, it appears that the necessity of friendship is slowly eroding and being replaced by the amount of options technology offers.
Having friends is no free ride, traditional friendships that come with the cost and the downsides. Friendship in the traditional sense seems more challenging to obtain as we focus much on ourselves. Friends can be a blessing but they are not essential to survive anymore.
The first the cost we can distinguish is the time which, with our busy lives, time it’s always a scarce commodity. Do we really want to exchange the little time we have for the company of other people? Many choose not to, as they instead spend their free time on solitary activities like creative pursuits.
The second course we can distinguish is energy. We’re often too tired during the work week, many choose to spend their free time in solitude to recharge.
The third coast is the resources – as socialising requires money l,in many cases, having no social life, therefore, saves money.
The fourth cost is conformity. When we enter a social interaction, friendships require conformity to a certain extent, depending on the people we’re dealing with. Consciously or subconsciously we wish we would be liked by our friends, vice versa and meet mutual expectations, thus, we present ourselves to appease and sweep the unwanted characteristics under the carpet, so we pay the price of wearing the mask among of friends, not showing the entirety of ourselves, afraid we fall out of favour.
Other downsides like the misery of bad friends. Friendships certainly can be a source of misery. The toxic friends, we’re afraid to let them go because we fear loneliness.
We depended herd for survival for many generations and the social ostracization often meant death. But today many societies allow us to survive with minimum social contact which gives us the luxury to a great extent of not having to associate with the people that makes us miserable.
Meandering leads to perfection 