Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships

deep emotional content of relationships,

WhatsApp which allow small closed groups to talk to each other and exchange images attests to the desire to have more focused, private conversations.

One was that in the days before email and WhatsApp, sending Christmas cards to old friends was a genuine exercise in maintaining friendships,

These processes also apply to friendships, of course. Friendships have to be created, and that means someone has to take the plunge and make an opening bid to establish interest.

occasional large, more formal feast involving many people creates bonds within the wider community.

Risk-taking and sportiness are other cues to which women seem to pay more than just casual attention.

the most obvious is the fact that friends are willing to help us out when we are in need not just of emotional support but also of more mundane things like help with moving house or the loan of money or tools.

We just find it harder to get to places where people gather socially. In the limit, of course, we eventually become housebound.

family, however, seems to be that when we eventually transgress once too often against them, the relationship is likely to fracture with such violence that it is all but irreparable.