In order to make friends and to keep friendship alive, one should be steady, honest, respected, empathetical, genuine... Be who you are and you will keep your friendship even with friends who are far away (long-distance friends). Do not assume that close friends who are in your vicinity will always be your friends. Friendship is forever but friendship must be cherished. Spend time with your friends, let them be a good portion of your time.

I believe the best way to keep friends is honesty.

One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Actually we choose our friends but not his parents. This assumes that the friendship is based on important values and play the role of cement in the relationship. Personally I consider that true friendship can have the same family status. Friendly dowry is very expensive that's why we can not have many friends. Regarding my friendship is very limited. It is based on one person from childhood to this day. The secret of our friendship is based on trust, availability to all events especially those that are painful. Furthermore it does not hide anything to each other. 

In order to make friends and to keep friendship alive, one should be steady, honest, respected, empathetical, genuine... Be who you are and you will keep your friendship even with friends who are far away (long-distance friends). Do not assume that close friends who are in your vicinity will always be your friends. Friendship is forever but friendship must be cherished. Spend time with your friends, let them be a good portion of your time.

Agree with mahfouz

To be frank, to be honest, to be helpful and supportive. 

" Friendship ought to be immortal, hostilities mortal. "

----- LIVY, Ab Urbe Condita, cc. 29BC

Dear Liliana ! In this sense, when you feel with the greatest emotion, your true friendship never dies.There is no greatest treasure, because it is (or should be ) everlasting.

"Between friends, there is no need of justice" ---- ARISTOTLE, Ethics, cc.4th cBC

I have only very few , but very true friends, and I share with them, this sense of Eternity. (I know I'm whealthy just for this! )

Dearest Maria, dear all! Thank you for being here.

I have learned a lot about friendship from my friends. :-)

Lilliana

Friendship can not be decreed. It is built over time. It's like a river that branches off here and there but we have to choose a bed for him to contain. You can have daily relations "say friendly" with people but true friendship is a value that has her dowry. This illustrates an Indian proverb "

To cultivate the friendship between two people, it sometimes takes patience of one of the two."

You are right, dear Fadel. I can be quite sincere and even insistent and cranky, but I am extremely patient. I wait. Many friends who were gone have come back. And that is a joy. Of course, my cooking is very good and that helps! Hahahahahaha!

Best regards, Lilliana

Dear All,

Coming to the first part of the question-what is the best way to make friends- I think the best way is not to seek friends. The best friends I have in my life are the ones who just became my friends, I never searched our for them. So it just happens.....like a river flows on its own.

In fact rather than seeking friends, seek yourself...explore yourself....find yourself. And this process of seeking oneself would find you friends forever.

Now coming to the second part of the question-what is the best way to keep friendship alive?- I think 'empathy' is the most important personal characteristic that shapes long-term enriching  experiences of friendship. Thank you Mahfuz Judeh, Fadel Djamel , Ljubomir Jacić and Napoleon for your wonderful comments on friendship and Liliyana for asking this question.

Regards!

Rakesh

I agree with the answers of Prof. Fadel. Friendship requires a long learning without taboos and without cachoteries of one and the other

Agree Fadel too!

In order to make friends and maintain friendships - is needed in all situations, be yourself.

I don't see friendship as a choice. It comes naturally and may go the same way it arrived.  When there is an interest known for getting together or apart there is much suffering. This is so true that we may have friends on drugs, bad parents, depressed, supportive, etc. They are all our friends. 

Friendship is something that comes naturally you make friends through hobbies, school, college and work. It can be based on mutual interests and understanding of various topics a l breed spirit. One who shares similar views and interests some one you can talk to around different aspects of life and life interests. Maybe part of it is to do with my religious upbringing as Charles Wesley said we are the friends of all and enemy's of none. Friendship varies from very close friends to just mere acquaintances. I consider all my learned friends on RG as friends with whom to share and explore life issues for the greater good of humanity and learning.

There are unknown laws that drive us to oeople and others that tell us to go away from them. Most of the times we do not have a clue they are their. Some people satisfy some needs we have and that is when everything begins. A friendship may grow so much that we do not have a border that set limits to what is ours and what is theirs.  The presence  of a good friend is always comforting, even if they are physically distant from us. We never laugh when they are doing something that may hurt themselves. We do not like when people bad mouth them.

One way to make friends is to be sociable and do not wait for others to break the ice. To keep frienship alive, it is important to be honest, humble, caring, and reliable.

Also, frienship is a two-way road. When one always reminds you with a short message or a small gift, he/she expects to be treated in the same way. These small deeds of kindness make  fienship nourish. 

There is not a u-turn to a friendship. How to keep a friendship or how to be sure we can count on that person at all times through the years. We just need to attend the same places. Try to look mad around someone you love. That is not an easy task. There is not such a thing as the end os a firendship and if we force it, we may suffer as much as if that oerson had died. And we should avoid places that person goes to in order to accomplish our intent. So, the difficult issue is how not be friends to someone you love. This is real tough. I believe we all have more friends than we believe we have. After all we are social beings. Is it not so, dear friends?

I agree with Vladimir and Georgina, in that, as cultured man,I feel closest to people endowed with great humanity and susequent learning, since the simplicity and humanity are a gift of providence.I am a genuine and most sensitive person, but today it is not so easy to find the above merits, but I found these only among musicians and artists.

Be natural, be real and you will find the synchrony with the right ones. No rules are there to maintain it, it just requires a simple courtesy, or hello or exchanging life events time to time without any validity.

 I think there must be something like loyalty or fidelity (as well as jealousy and disillusion) in friendship, too. Add to this, that new ways of civilised life do not help to keep up friendships - at least that is my own personal experience.

I totally agree with the answer of Vladimir Kulchitsky that seems succinct and complete. Friendship based on mere interests of the moment and falsehood is not real friendship. Nobody can pretend forever. In other words, is always necessary honesty, as Mahfuz Judeh pointed out, also.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

Aristotle, the ancient "master of those who know," is perhaps the greatest writer on friendship. Nothing I know of, ancient or modern, compares to his treatment of the topic in the Nicomachean Ethics.

Two samples:

"wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit."

"A friend to all is a friend to none."

However, reflecting on the meaning and value of friendship is an activity that genuine friends need not share.

H.G. Callaway

“Be genuinely interested in everyone you meet and everyone you meet will be genuinely interested in you”

― Rasheed Ogunlaru

I also agree fully, with dear Vladimir's contribute. Honesty and loyalty must be included in true friendship, if you are an honest person. Pure altruism also helps.

" Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies " --- ARISTOTLE, quoted in Diogenes Laertius ' "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers", 3rd c. BC

See friends ....

honesty

What is the best way to make friends? What is the best way to keep friendship alive?

Think the better way to make friends is to evaluating each others' value systems, common interests / passions & how best to complement each others.  In order to sustain the friendship think there should be mutual respect, mutual support, truthful to & trusting each others.

You can also find the relevant answers pertaining to this question by referring to the following RG link:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_Friendship2

From Mozart's Stammbuch:

Adehlheid Weber(November 11,1787, Prague)

Chi non conosce l'attenta, sincera e disinteressata amicizia, non Conosce la cosa migliore che gli uomini si possono dare.Questa offre al suo Caro Mozart con tutto il suo cuore

La sua vera amica e zia Weber

Dear Giacomo, I translate here your note for the benefit of those who do not read Italian:

"He who has not experienced thoughtful, sincere and disinterested friendship does not know the best thing men can give themselves. She who writes this offers it to dear Mozart with all her heart.

His true friend and aunt Weber"

Lilliana

In my experience true friendship is found, not sought. How often do we wish to be someone's friend only to find that we have made a friend instead of their friend. Seeking friendship can backfire in mysterious ways.

A chance good deed, a helping hand, a well-deserved compliment, those things garner more friends than all the flourished precious metals and gems.

Keeping true friendship requires only to reach out and say "Hi, thinking about you", to call and offer support in time of need, to surprise the friend with the unexpected. True friendship transcends time and distance. Ordinary friendship requires work, words of encouragement, lunch dates, fireside chats, gifts of obligation, much ouzo.

Dear H.G., yes, friendship owes quite a lot to Aristotle. But also to people like Anaïs Nin and Virginia Woolf, who attest to the everyday development of the self beyond the agora of the politai, which is Aristotle's strongest link to friendship. What we have gained in the last few centuries in what pertains to friendship is its "intimacy", something that quite a few have esteemed as the feminine aspect of friendship. But after reading the desolately muted homage paid by Maurice Blanchot to his close friend Georges Bataille on his passing in his essay "Friendship" on the book by the same title, I begin to understand the intellectual intimacy that Blanchot and Bataille shared, just as Woolf with her sister and with Vita, and Nin with random people who would invite her to be other than what she was. This new "language of friendship" has to do —I think— with shared sensations, unspeakable situations which are transmitted outside language, or maybe through a "private language". Aristotle gives us a lesson about political life without which society cannot be possible, and these recent thoughts on friendship, like we find in Derrida's The Work of Mourning, where he publishes his funerary speeches at the funerals of beloved friends like Emmanuel Levinas and Paul de Mann, and in Blanchot's book on friendship, come to fill the cup of friendship to the brim. This so-very-personal friendship belongs to modernity, as an addition to Aristotle's zeal in behalf of the more political one. It has always surprised me that ancient Greek had no word for "will". That absence might be, among other things, the reason for this development towards a more intimate friendship.

Warm regards, Lilliana

Dear James, I agree with you completely. Nothing as thrilling as finding a new friend, and nothing as thrilling as to be found by someone to be his or her new friend. Yes, I love to be found. I just realized it. :-)

As always, best regards, Lilliana

A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

--- Walter Winchell

Friendship is a bond of Mind & Heart .Mind unites with the feelings ,love ,intelligence ,common interest ,& mutual behavior to take a shape of shake hands .This  sort of friendship makes a everlasting relation between each other which help to establish a tuning with the heart.

Friendship is not a searching place it come automatically in the school & college days remain the real place for creating friendship .During the days of our study ,formation of friendship is the way for joining a life long passage for creating an inter mercy bond .

Such sort of friendship never gets distorted for any reason as it has been established under mutual trust where the negative element of jealousy ego,may not have any place in the relation between friendship .

This is my personal opinion 

Friendship is biblical... Friendship has various benefits which the Book of Ecclesiastics 4: 9-12 explained .

The secret is simple... make friends with those you share the same philosophy of life with. Be your self and seek for such people.

To keep it  alive, dynamic communication between the parties is a must.  Then the parties must be sincere and as such respect themselves and sacrifice when its necessary.

Dear Charles, friendship exists way before the Bible existed and in cultures that do not use our Bible. Aristotle, who wrote a lot about friendship way before there was a Bible. Friendship is human, thus, it is also in the Bible and in other thousands of books. Not all friendships are biblical. Nowadays, sharing the same philosophy of life is not a requisite in general: in fact "sameness" has been replaced with "acceptance of difference"; you can be yourself and also somebody else and still keep your friends, as when someone changes his or her religion or political persuasion, undergoes sexual change surgery, among many other examples. Sincerity has come under question just because sincerity may be "sincerely wrong" or lacking in "timing". In this world based on difference, friendship has expanded its wings to cover many other positive things that used to be regarded as reasons to break with a friend. That is why I have asked the question: because friendship has changed quite a bit. I believe it has become more generous.

Thank you for being here, Charles. I appreciate it very much.

Lilliana

Thank you so much Lilliana.I had no time to translate the sentence from German into English.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Ramos-Collado,

See, for instance Nicomachean Ethics, Book IX Chp. 4:

Friendly relations with one's neighbors, and the marks by which friendships are defined, seem to have proceeded from a man's relations to himself. For (1) we define a friend as one who wishes and does what is good, or seems so, for the sake of his friend, or (2) as one who wishes his friend to exist and live, for his sake; which mothers do to their children, and friends do who have come into conflict. And (3) others define him as one who lives with and (4) has the same tastes as another, or (5) one who grieves and rejoices with his friend; and this too is found in mothers most of all. It is by some one of these characterstics that friendship too is defined.

---End quotation

It seems to me that you under-estimate the intimacy of Aristotelian friendship, which is a very broad concept, embracing also a mother's love for her child. It is difficult to imagine a more intimate relationship than that. Again, see the phrases italicized in my quotation. A friend wishes his or her friend "to exist and live for his (or her own) sake." To understand anyone that intimately is surely rare.

It seems clear to me that we do not lack in Aristotle's writings for concern with "will" --and also willfulness. It is any exterior exercise of willfulness which we must give up in relation to friends, surely. Those who attempt to control or manipulate, we do not regard as friends, however intimate their knowledge.

H.G. Callaway

“The best way to make friends with an audience is to make them laugh.

I have a theory that if you can make them laugh, they’re your friends.”

                                                                                         Frank Caspro

Hello RG Friends!

I would like to share "to keep friendship alive" from healthday.com as follows:

In fact, friendship may be even more important for adults than for kids. Studies have found that friendships and other forms of strong social support can protect adults against depression and heart disease. 

As important as adult friendships can be, new ones aren't always easy to start, and they can be even harder to keep.

Staying in touch

     If you feel as though old friends are slipping away, you should find a way to stay connected. Be systematic about it: Write a list of everyone you want to keep in touch with and make the commitment to email, call, or visit each of them soon. Ideally, you should be doing something more than reminding them of your existence. Make a plan to do something fun together, even if it's just playing a game of Scrabble online. Activities are a glue for friendship.

Listen

      It sounds simple, but one key way to nurture a friendship is to listen when your friend is talking, especially when you listen actively and ask follow-up questions. We've all known people who seem to be stuck in "broadcast" mode -- they only want to talk about their own lives and activities and don't seem interested in anyone else. People like that aren't much fun to be around.

Electronic friendships

        Online social networks such as MySpace or Facebook aren't just for teenagers. Many adults have discovered that such sites are a great way to exchange messages, share photos, find lost friends, and generally keep in touch with people all over the country or all over the world. 

Expanding your options

          While you're doing what you can to maintain your current friendships, why not expand your options? Chances are, there are some interesting people all around you. 

           There's a bonus to staying active and involved in your community. Not only will you have a chance to make friends, you'll have less trouble keeping them. It's simply easier to carry on conversations and engage with other people if you have an active, interesting life.

Your Friend AZY

http://consumer.healthday.com/encyclopedia/aging-1/misc-aging-news-10/keeping-friendships-alive-648409.html

Philadelphia, PA

Por Lilliana:

"Friendship,"

by R.W. Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood

The surging sea outweighs,

The world uncertain comes and goes,

The lover rooted stays.

I fancied he was fled,

And, after many a year,

Glowed unexhausted kindliness

Like daily sunrise there.

My careful heart was free again,

O friend, my bosom said,

Through thee alone the sky is arched,

Through thee the rose is red,

All things through thee take nobler form,

And look beyond the earth,

And is the mill-round of our fate

A sun-path in thy worth.

Me too thy nobleness has taught

To master my despair;

The fountains of my hidden life

Are through thy friendship fair.

H.G.

Hello RG Friends!

        Good friends help us to understand who we really are.

        I would like to express 35 ways of creating and cultivating lasting friendships from goodlifezen.com:

All the Best!

http://goodlifezen.com/35-ways-to-create-lasting-friendships/

No, dear H.G. The social and psychological organization of the subject has changed. This is a post-Freudian intuition that has caught speed in the last 50 years in Europe. The same claim has been voiced by non Western cultural traditions not based on the Greek model. In sum: We are not quite exactly Greeks anymore.

I do not underestimate Aristotle. I just see the great change between what an individual was in Greece at that time, and what a subject is now here. For more on this subject, I recommend the books on Greek culture by the great scholar Jean-Pierre Vernant, and the other members of L'École des Annales.  Also, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Mille Plateaus. And Jean-Luc Nancy's many books on the changes in the human subject throughout history. I specially recommend the tough dialogue among a number of philosophers: Eduardo Cadava, Peter Connor, Jean-Luc Nancy. Who Comes After the Subject? New York: Routledge (1991). It is full of great discussions and deadly fireworks. In fact, many scholars set the change towards the "modern subject" (that which is now being hacked and torn to pieces by Nancy) in Giovanni Boccaccio's Elegia di Madonna Fiammetta, about whom I have talked to you before. Fiametta is considered to be the first "psychological novel". Contrary to Saint Augustine's Confessions where he sets his "psychology" as something he must put in line with God, Fiametta tries to understand why her feelings cannot be controlled in a sociable manner, and her many contradictions cannot be assuaged. Something like that happens in Petrarch's very interesting fictional confession to an equally  fictional Augustine, whom he calls by the name of Generous Ultor (generous executioner) titled De remediis utriusque fortunae (something like Remedies for this and that fortune or the good and the bad fortune), where the play of contradictions sets the building of morality squarely upon the subject without aid from God. That was György Lukacs's idea of the "degraded hero" of modernity. There is nothing new in my words. Apparently, philosophy is not frozen in time.

As you know, the war against Aristotle is picking up momentum. I still read him with delight, and with a chunk if salt. A mere grain is no longer enough! See former director of the Jacques Derrida Collège international de philosophie, Babara Cassin's book Nos Grecs et leurs modernes: Les strategies contemporaines d'appropriation de l'Antiquite (Chemins de pensee). Paris: Seuil (1992). With the aide of Cassin, right now in France there is a group of intellectuals redefining the Greek "dictionary" compiled in late 18th century in Germany because everybody thought that words meant the same so the Germans second-guessed most word meanings. Evidently, words do not stay still because society does not stay still. Also devoted to devising a better ancient Greek dictionary is famed cultural Historian Nicole Loraux, especially in her splendid study on the word "neck" in some Greek tragedies (Façons tragiques de tuer une femme, Paris, Hachette, 1985). I know this sounds funny, but google up Loraux and you will see she is one of the greatest Ancient Greek scholars in the 20th-21st centuries. Just imagine, H.G., If the translation of  the word "neck" in Sophocles is wrong, what about the translations of Aristotle??? 

Things change.

Warm regards, Lilliana*

* Bear with me. I do not want to lose your friendship. :-)

Dear Markovic, "tolerance" is not what a person would like to receive from a friend. Real friends prefer "acceptance". Every time. Nobody should want "tolerance", really. "Tolerance" insinuates that you are forced to deal with something you don't like. "Acceptance" means that you will accept a friend regardless of the circumstances. That is why almost nobody talks about "tolerance" anymore. 

"Stubborn" is what you call a person who will not step back, and this person will be considered stubborn even if he or she brings to the discussion full evidence to prove his or her point. I've always thought that men cannot accept a woman who insists in her point of view, whereas men are "insistent" or are heroic because they "stand their ground". I have perceived this double standard here in RG. 

I have seen many stubborn men here who have not gained enemies. And I have seen women here who have stood their ground and have had to apologize although they were correct. Double standards are never good. Not among scientists. Don't you think, dear Markovic? 

Best regards, Lilliana

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Ramos-Collado,

Just a brief reply for now. It seems to me that you mention many names and books, but do little by way of making your altered sense of "self" clear above. I suspect it is simply some old alternative in fancy new dress--or else even more doubtful.

You wrote:

Dear Markovic, "tolerance" is not what a person would like to receive from a friend. Real friends prefer "acceptance". Every time. Nobody should want "tolerance", really. "Tolerance" insinuates that you are forced to deal with something you don't like. "Acceptance" means that you will accept a friend regardless of the circumstances. That is why almost nobody talks about "tolerance" anymore.

---End quotation

On the contrary, tolerance is an important virtue, and especially in a pluralistic society. Those without tolerance want to win by destroying all possible competition. This may indeed hide behind fancy allusions and references, but it is often enough just good old-fashioned, ambition, untamed and unrestrained. If you haven't seen this, I don't know what world you are living in!

I write too quickly! But you defame a social virtue, which allows for distance and peace.

H.G. Callaway

The best was to make friends is to live a simple life, have a sense of humour, to be respectful, meet people...and the best way to keep friendship alive is to be tolerant, forgiving, caring, patient, to be good at giving, don't be selfish, be determined to live in peace with people, do not count faults, avoid to keep records of past hurts...

Dear H.G.:

As to your interesting view of my philosophical background, I can only surmise that you deem it doubtful because you are not familiar with it. This is not my fault, my friend: It would have been enough if you had looked these references up. I look up your references when necessary, and I would have expected minimal reciprocity here. Differences in background should not mean than one background is ok and the other is "doubtful". Just read, like I do when I want to follow your arguments. And I quite enjoy reading your references. There is nothing else I can say but to suggest that you take me on my word as I take yours. That is friendship, after all.

Now to what really matters: the importance of acceptance over tolerance.

I checked several references and definitions and decided to use what has been said about acceptance and tolerance in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which offers more than 100 definitions of "tolerance." I decided to dwell on the use given to it in the Stanford article on Human Rights. This is the view I found in what pertains to countries with different minority cultures and a high degree of multicultural intolerance, like the United States. Please touch on the following link: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/ and scroll down to Chapter 4. It bears noting that, in several instances, this document talks about the necessary acceptance of the human rights of the Other, and deals with tolerance as a special issue in tense multicultural countries. Such "tolerance", according to the Stanford reviewer of the issue, would possibly mean a great burden upon the State because of rampant and violent intolerance. That is why acceptance of the human right is preferred over "tolerance". The article recognizes that  a huge change of mind and heart would be needed in multicultural states in order to reach acceptance. Reaching acceptance is an enormous challenge for human rights.

As you see, dear H.G., I am not "defaming tolerance", but exalting acceptance, precisely what the philosophers debating human rights are talking about.

It also bears noting that "tolerance" used to be a "virtue" in the 18th century, where social classes were still apart and the communities did not have noticeable multicultural traits. Tolerance was just bearing with people who had to be there, but it did not require anything else, you did not have to open your door to people or invite them to your table. You did not have to greet them, as Judith Butler recently said about what the world needs right now: the greeting of acceptance, a handshake, a place at the table for the Other. That is why the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States is claiming for acceptance, a very long step beyond “tolerance”, and is also what the Syrian refugees want: acceptance: they want to be friends with their new communities, as dear Olga Laguta told us under my question on the refugees when she talked about how the Muslim community had been accepted in her city. That is why tolerance is not the term we should use today, regardless of how lofty that term used to be for Voltaire and his enlightened friends I happen to adore. 

Friendship is the laboratory of acceptance, of the greeting and the handshake, of sharing the table. I know we do not have many models for this "extreme" friendship, but thinking of the beautiful messages and commentaries that have been posted here, maybe it is time to really try to accept, not just tolerate. Like Aristotle said, “What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.” In this world torn by wars, prejudice and discrimination, hunger, global warming and financial distress, being two in one and one in two is probably the way to better understand the needs of the Other, I mean, of our friend. Peaceful friendship requires this: the handshake, the mingling, the embrace, the acceptance. Friendship should be like peace.

As always, warm regards, Lilliana

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Ramos-Collado,

Basically, I would say that your proffered, great distinction between "acceptance"and "tolerance" is an exaggerated quibble. Recognizing the human rights of all goes without question. Whether we want to have closer connection with given persons is another question entirely. Freedom of association implies freedom of disassociation;  and if we are not free to form relationships on the basis of our own preferences and values, then this is essentially a program of forced assimilation. Tolerance means the possibility of distance while maintaining social peace. Force assimilation divides society into conflicting camps which is exactly the result which has been attained.

It is because we recognize the human rights of people, whether or not we may wish any closer association that we naturally speak of tolerance. The denigration of tolerance is a formula for forced relationships and for the power to force unwanted values upon people who know better. That's how I see the matter.

The denigration of tolerance shows the hard face of top-down power in our contemporary societies. Peace is one thing, friendship something much deeper.

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Por Lilliana:

"Friendship,"

by R.W. Emerson

A ruddy drop of manly blood

The surging sea outweighs,

The world uncertain comes and goes,

The lover rooted stays.

I fancied he was fled,

And, after many a year,

Glowed unexhausted kindliness

Like daily sunrise there.

My careful heart was free again,

O friend, my bosom said,

Through thee alone the sky is arched,

Through thee the rose is red,

All things through thee take nobler form,

And look beyond the earth,

And is the mill-round of our fate

A sun-path in thy worth.

Me too thy nobleness has taught

To master my despair;

The fountains of my hidden life

Are through thy friendship fair.

H.G.

What is the best way to make friends? What is the best way to keep friendship alive? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_best_way_to_make_friends_What_is_the_best_way_to_keep_friendship_alive/5 [accessed Apr 24, 2016].

Dear H.G.:

You insist in that I "denigrate" tolerance because I insist on acceptance. I am not the only person in the world asking for acceptance. I believe most people using the word tolerance under this question may actually mean "acceptance", but as you know, when the rights of persons are at stake, using the proper words really helps keep things clear. That is why I resorted to closely reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on Human Rights. You wanted proof and texts and quotations, well I have given them to you. It seems Rawls, Nozick  and other important philosophers who discuss human rights in that article might agree with me about acceptance vs. tolerance. You are trying to make me "an enemy of the people" under my own question on friendship. This is not a drama by Henrik Ibsen, but a drama of your own invention, a useless drama. 

Thus, I do not agree with your saying that I denigrate a word. If the denigration of tolerance, according to you, shows the hard face of power, my guess is that the exaltation of acceptance will eventually bring us peace, democracy, happiness, etc. Power will become powerless after we start accepting the Other precisely because, according to the quoted article, the face of power is that of tolerance which has the authority to slip into intolerance any day any time. The "separate but equal" stance of tolerance is evidently not working at all. It separates only to make killing and harassing easier. That is the situation right now with racial discrimination in the United States: it is barbaric because we are evidently unequal.

When you say, and I quote, "Recognizing the human rights of all goes without question. Whether we want to have closer connection with given persons is another question entirely," you remind me of Schultz's Peanuts character called Linus's and  famous quote, "I love mankind. It's people I can't stand". Evidently, you and I have very different ideas of friendship, dear friend.

I must then say that I am an accepting person, and I feel really good about it. It has made me quite happy. If things do not work well, then, maybe tolerance —the smallest effort toward friendship— might come in handy. I could describe tolerance as a sort of inertia: you can go from zero movement to a killing spree with just a small push, as discussed in the quoted Stanford article. According to it, "tolerance" may be desirable "psychologically" for those who must do the "tolerating", but in the long run it will give in to intolerance, which was there in the first place and could come back in an instant.  

H.G., stop trying to pick a fight. It is uncomely. It is evidently forced, unnecessary. I will not fight with you. Come down from the high horse of Defender of Tolerance. I am an optimist. That is why I engage with people, that is why I am vehement, that is why I am strong-willed. Without engagement, vehemence and a strong will, things will never change for the better.

Snap out of your belligerence, H.G., and let's keep on.

Warm regards, Lilliana

Ancient philosophers and scientists agree: strong social ties are a KEY to happiness. You need close, long-term relationships; you need to be able to confide in others; you need to belong; you need to get and give support.

Studies show that if you have five or more friends with whom to discuss an important matter you’re far more likely to describe yourself as “very happy.” Not only does having strong relationships make it far more likely that you take joy in life, but studies show that it also lengthens life (incredibly, even more than stopping smoking), boosts immunity, and cuts the risk of depression.

http://gretchenrubin.com/happiness_project/2010/01/eight-tips-for-maintaining-friendships/

There is old proverb that says, “friends are flowers in the garden of life.”

Friendships need their own kind of water and soil to grow healthy and strong.

For 25 things to keep in mind to facilitate building stronger friendships -- see Link! 

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2008/08/29/build-stronger-friendships/

Dear Subhash, you are very generous in commenting in most of my questions. These questions are fueled by my commitment to the idea and the practice of "community". I have managed to keep very old friends and have introduced them to by newest friends so we can do things together. The other night a few came to celebrate Miguel de Cervantes and his Don Quixote and we took turns to read our favorite passages of that great book. I find that friendship is not difficult, and that caring is a happy task. I like people, and I like to talk and to listen.I even like to have a fight now and then so we can voice our differences. But fights are soon forgotten. I read the books I receive as gifts so I can comment on them to the friends who gave them to me. The same with music or theatre tickets. I love to cook for my friends, and I love to sing, though I am not that good at singing. Friendship can be very simple. After all, there is nothing to cement a friendship, no contract, no marriage license, no formal commitment as in other activities. You must really want to be friends with someone in order to be friends and to keep that friendship alive. I accept my friends as they are, and I enjoy our differences, because most of my friends are different from one another. Most of them are artist, writers, professors, gardeners, cooks. So we always have so much to talk about. We read poems together, chat, eat, share some wine. We do that as often as we can, and we share our houses to change the scene. When for some reason there is a misunderstanding, we all suffer, and up to now we have been able to survive our bad moments —there are always bad moments during a friendship—. We apologize and make amends. If we can't, we mourn a lost friendship. That is very sad. I believe that friendship is a gift to be treasured. Our conversation becomes very lively when we disagree, we even get angry, but that is forgotten when we meet again. I have complex friends, and I love to be with them.

Yes, I am a happy person. :-)

Thank you for being here and bringing me things to read about friendship.

Warm regards, Lilliana

Lilliana, complex friends mean artists, intellectuals and scientists each having a distinct personality, but all of  them rely on a goal to contribute to human  knowledge and the society

Best,

Giacomo

Dear Giacomo, you are absolutely right. My original studies were in chemistry and math, then I went into philosophy, then to literary studies and translation, and finally to architectural heritage studies. I've always studied only what I like. My friends come from all those disciplines: science, philosophy, literature, music, the fine arts, cultural criticism, gardening and cooking, tourism, arts administration. We do have a good time together. Complex, but a great time.

Best regards, Lilliana

According to me , there is no way or method for making friendship. It is in our social behavior. Our behavior, our temperament, empathy about others, helping nature, compatibility with age groups will automatically make others to befriend us!!!

We need not have to shed any thing for this!!

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Ramos-Collado,

I am not belligerent in the least about theses matters, but as you say, merely firm and vehement. There is nothing personal in it. I have merely been defending tolerance as a much needed social virtue. Where tolerance is rejected, there remains only the stark divide between affiliation and enmity.  This is a description of an illiberal society.

I notice that you do not speak to my argument from the freedom of association. Freedom of association implies freedom of disassociation, and across the differences of those not directly associated, there is a need of tolerance to maintain the social peace, even among those who may have little sympathy or understanding of  the existing diversity. Your idea that tolerance is the opening to intolerance strikes me as rather Orwellian: "War is peace," freedom is slavery," --and "tolerance is hatred"? You seem to fall far from common sense, here. I have heard this kind of advocacy a thousand times.

If I need a "high horse" to reject your intolerance of tolerance, then I guess I will find one. You attack a fundamental value of any democratic society, as I see it. This is simply unacceptable, and I think that we need to say so.

H.G. Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost:

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows?

But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me~

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

---End

H.G. Callaway

main concepts: love, truth and honesty

In Le Petit Prince (The little Prince), Saint-Exuperie described a simple and effective mode for that.

"-- Apprivoise moi", dis le Renard."

"You must captivate me", said the fox".

But then a rare fox is that one who´d like to be captivated. Anyway, rather captivated then hunted...

Never try to 'make' friends. True friendship may be rare, but it runs deep and lasts forever when it finds you.

Dear Lilliana Ramos-Collado,

The definition of Aristotle 

“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”  Nicomachean Ehics

could also applies to all human intimate/loving relationships.  I take it to be litterality true and not only symbolically or figuratively true.  The lost of a love one is thus also a partial death of ourself.

There is no best way but an infinity of ways and the more sincere and honest and empathic is the relationship and the more the soul dwelling extend.  As any living thing, care is what keep it alive. And competition , uncaring, taking advantage of is what kill/unrooted it.

Best way of making friend?.....I feel - Dont do any effort...if your vibrations are in phase u will be friend without any effort if not all efforts will go in vain...

Dear all! Please pay attention to the kind of paradox. In our environment is a thousand or more people. And we sometimes for years (sometimes for life) can not find a Friend. How high are our spiritual needs and feelings of other people. Even when we become friends. But why so often in these respects, our insistence to itself goes by the wayside? Sincere friendship implies mutual improvement in all.

Loyalty - faithfulness - commitment!

 Here's the whole secret.

It is simple and difficult at the same time.

Regards:-)

“When it comes to making friends, it is never about how many that you have, but about the kind of energy that they bring. Please choose wisely.”

~Edmond Mbiaka

Dear Vladimir, you are very wise: "Sincere friendship implies mutual improvement in all." Yes, you are right!

I will include this among the quotes under this question. :-)

Lilliana

Dear Lilliana, to keep friendship alive it is very important to listen each other and always be near your friend, even if you are too far.

for part 2 : stay connected, drop a message in your friends' inbox to remind and realize them that there is someone who thinks about you.

Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives and remembering what one receives.

– Alexander Dumas

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm & constant.

– Socrates

"If we want to build a lasting friendship, we must love our friends for them and not for us".                         - Charlote Brontë -

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all,

Another Aristotle quotation:

in tyranny there is little or no friendship. For where there is nothing common to ruler and ruled, there is not friendship either, since there is not justice.

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html

The idea is, basically, that the political tyrant is jealous and attempts to destroy any friendship not serving the tyrant's purposes. In a free society, the rulers also represent our interests, and this helps preserve the possibility of friendship.

H.G. Callaway

(See the thread below.)

According to Aristotle, "In tyranny there is little or no friendship." Can anyone explain the connection Aristotle claims? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/According_to_Aristotle_In_tyranny_there_is_little_or_no_friendship_Can_anyone_explain_the_connection_Aristotle_claims [accessed Apr 26, 2016].

Dear Lilliana! Thank you for your attention to my statements. Most recently marked the date in 400 years after the death of Shakespeare and Cervantes. Allegories, sayings, wisdom, works both geniuses of loneliness ("to be or not to be"), the search for the impossible (lovely lady), friendship, treachery, and the essence of life.

Thank you for an excellent discussion topic, which shook the usual routine of our lives.

Vladimir

A friend loves at all times and in adversity is a brother.  The Bible

So I think through my quote "My friend is a brother that life does not give me"

A very bitter reality but true that factually there is no permanent enemy neither permanent friend....... expectations in shape of symbiosis and parasitic actually bring people together and when people feel comfortable in natural way by each other then get more deep into every kind of communicational channel and a good friendship get started usually.........To keep the friendship alive always remain away from false pretensions and remain open the completely understandable communicational channels............Its not the facts which effect on relations as facts are facts and human can get some logical justifications for it but its the acts which harm it...............and the type of act which harm the relation very deeply is that that which bring the message of ignorance, none trust, cheating, and none clear assumptions during communications..............The act of Alive Open Communication with Well wishing attentions in real are the best way to keep the friendship alive regardless of facts............!!

Its my view, it can be different for others as every one have its own personality traits and not every personality get match with every other personality traits.

• True Friendship is seen through the Heart, not through the Eyes.
• True Friendship is not measured in Days or Decades.
• Real Friendship is shown in times of Trouble, Prosperity is Full of Friends.

                                                                                                                     Sylvie

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is friend with chocolate."

                                                                                         Charles Dickens

“Friendship is like whisky,the older,the better….”

Here is an associated question that what is that link between human in term of science that that sometime human sacrifice sustainably for other human just to carryon friendship like relation with out any logical reasoning ?

“Love is friendship set on fire ….”

"Friends Uplift the Soul..."

Dear Liliana,

You have collected a good deal of quotations but your opinion or friend getting strategy have remained unknown.

What Plato suggested was no method but inherited and acquired ability. Most of us are fools, should we remain without friends?

Aristotle choose a poetic draft that cannot help much either.   

Thomas Aquinas drafted merely the ethical background of friendship.

Friends so eloquently evaluated could not help poor Virginia Woolf.

Anaïs Nin had only another formulation of former definitions.

Maurice Blanchot’s definition may be a long poem full of feeling and intelligence but it is no solution for your question.

Vladimir Kulchitsky wrote something strange: can there be friendship without frankness?

Is it possible to survive without friends?

The fact we exist does mean we have good friends?

Or being here and discussing virtually with each other does mean we are without friends?  

Dear András,

To refer only to your last point [although I realise that you are addressing it to Liliana, and I am therefore at risk of encroaching]: I suspect that there are divers and diverse answers to that, depending on the divers and diverse reasons why everyone is answering questions such as this..... Sometimes, as today, I myself wonder why I am reading some of them, let alone answering any!

Another factor is that 'friendship' appears to have similarly diverse meanings to respondents. Do respondents have 1000 or 10 'friends' on Facebook? For myself, none of my true friends are on Facebook, Academia or Researchgate, let alone following me. What about you? How many and what depth of 'true friends' I have is... private! Suffice to say, if you read my original answer - I'm not looking for any.

'Friendship' itself is a gift. In both directions.

Dear Margaret,

I may be wrong but I think one cannot have too many or unlimited friends. This is physically impossible, friendship may be a flower (it is not my idea) which needs care, care needs energy and our energy is limited. Having too many friends one cannot invest the necessary dose of love and attention to make the plant bloomed. Thanks for your ideas.

Margaret, András, I love my friends, and I love the very concept of friendship. I take risks, and many have been eventful. I am not every body's or anybody's friend, but I have had, throughout my life, many happy surprises. Most of my friends are former colleagues. Apparently for me, some connection with real life —the life of work and responsibility— is very important. But I still have very old friends, and many longtime friends, and very young friends. I kind of agree the most with Vladimir Kulchintsky's idea" "Sincere friendship implies mutual improvement in all," which is the last of my quotes. True friends help us be better than what we were, so, in many ways, our character is chiseled by the people who take the time to be our friends and ask us  and share with us the will to be better. I love to learn from my friends how to bake a better cake, and how to improve my knowledge and skills. That is why I am in Facebook and in ResearchGate, where I have some than 3,500 friends combined, of which only some 200 have constant communication in common. Some of them I have never met personally, but when I travel, I try to meet them in person, and this has been quite successful. Almost all of my close friends and my family are on Facebook

Basically, I am friendly, but quite sincere —maybe even too frank—, reason why I have lost a few friends along the way. I am usually outspoken, but extremely patient, and my friends are already acquainted with that. I bear with them and they bear with me. It is an agreement. I do think that I have become better, more tender, funnier... because of my friends. And I am lucky to say that I do not have more than two friends who do or think the same, and that means I have had the chance to learn new and different things from the best teachers. My friends span the continents, and most I know in person. That is why friendship is hard work, because my friends and I have tried to get together in real life. 

I never think that if a friend disappears for a while, we have lost each other. Most have returned, some after a long while. But I understand that life is complicated. I myself have disappeared for maybe two years at the most, and I do that when I feel I am not "presentable", not suited for human consumption. My friends respect that and they do not stop writing to me. Some of us are more or less my age (I am almost 62), and the only who get impatient are the younger ones (17 to 50 years old) and for different reasons. None of us is the center of attention of the rest. No: all of us are there for sharing. We are not a tribe with a leader, but a bunch of weirdos. We have something in common: we all believe that we can become a better humanity, so we take care not only of the safety or wellbeing of one another, but check if each of us is improving, maturing, being more generous, caring, sharing more. 

When my mother got very ill last October, I asked my friends in Facebook to share their strength and hope with me. Within a week, more than 1,500 responded with words of hope. Every day I went to visit my mother and I would read to her their messages of hope, and she would ask about each person, their children, their jobs, and these people became real for her, human, caring: she took their words of hope as real. My mother had been taken off treatment, and her doctor had told her that she was really really near death with kidney failure, and my siblings and I, and even my mother, felt she survived because of all that hope coming in. She recovered in 4 days 11% of her kidney function. We did not take it as a miracle. We knew who did that. The good will of my friends, their enthusiasm —whether or not real or sincere— and my own mother's will rekindled by them. Instead of a two or three-day respite, she died a month ago calm, smiling, and feeling surrounded by good will. From last October to last month my mother listened to me reading everyone's good wishes, talked with some of them on the phone, feeling breezy and surrounded by well-meaning persons from all places in the planet. I was so grateful, I still AM so grateful, and ever will be because those Facebook friends, many of whom are long-time friends she had had the chance to meet many years ago, were there for her. I call that friendship: these people improved my mother's quality of life for many months. Whether or not most of those Facebook friends are real friends, I will never know. But they massively stood by me in my hour of need. You can check that if you wish: my Facebook wall is public. I believe my mom was my best friend. 

This is difficult to explain: I am a militant optimist, and I seem to attract similarly optimistic people who do not sit there when something is wrong but who put their optimism to work.

I am not sure whether this explains my definition of friendship, buts this is more or less it. Some people love being in love. I love being in friendship.

:-)

Best regards, Lilliana

Study suggests that having more friends could increase pain tolerance.

http://www.livescience.com/54580-friendship-pain-tolerance.html

Many friends do not happen, and a friend never swears friendship

I would suggest that answer of both the part of this query is "Honesty"

A honest person is the best friend of himself and only that person can be proved as friend for others. 

Actually this is the only trait that we search in all of our friends and companions, we repel towards dishonest and false personality.

Dear Liliana,

I may live in a sick country with frozen human relationships or I am blind and cannot recognise the wonderful opportunities of life. However, the perfectly brilliant words with which you characterized your friendships showed me a fairy world of tales where everybody is an almost perfect person at least a knight or damsel of the Holy Grail of liberal values.  Regarding your 3500 friends I would be satisfied if I were able only to memorise their names. Of course, I am glad you have such fine human relationships and live in such a delicate environment.   

Studies have shown that a person has between 4 and 10 true friends at any one time in their life. The "friends" developed on social media Web sites, often numbering in the hundred to thousands, are better termed acquaintances. A friend helps you out, supports you, and has frequent talks with you. A true friend will drop everything, if possible, to be there for you in your time of need.

http://www.today.com/health/social-media-study-reveals-you-can-only-count-4-your-t70316

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2842105/Why-social-media-really-t-replace-friends-True-friendship-requires-three-years-eight-calls-two-meetings-month.html

http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/06/chapter-4-social-media-and-friendships/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200611/friendship-the-laws-attraction

It depends on what we consider a friend. The sucess of the  Homo sapiens in suplanting other species of this genus may ocurred due to te fact that our species can consider a larger group as friends.

For instance, the larger  Neanderthal goups rarely reached 50y persons, while those of the Humo sapines were normaly 150 persons. This may explain why Homo sapiens is alive now while the stronger Neanderthal is extinct. The humnas could attack in larger numbers and thus  killing the Neanderthals.

Friends are important, but due to our difficulties in having large number of those, we need to maintain a group besides our friends.  

Dear Andràs, I am no Cinderella... what can I say? That I am weird, lucky, insistent, optimistic... When I am down, I snap out of it, when I'm ok I make dinner for a few friends who are free that night. It bears noting that my life is not perfect, after all, I lost my mother, my country is right now the New Greece, I might lose my tenure at the university because we are in an emergency situation and the Governor is calling to close some few agencies, including some parts of my university... our retirement fund was just slashed in half two years before of my retirement date. I might lose my house if I cannot pay the mortgage. That is real. It is all over the news. The New York Times has dedicated an editorial to Puerto Rico every month since January. But friends are here just the same. I am in the middle of a real economic catastrophe that is affecting all the 4 million Puerto Ricans who live in this island. I am working hard but that will not matter when it is time to decide who gets to stay teaching, and quality does not matter. I teach architecture and there is no money to build or to create or to restore. I do not know who of you live in a place like Greece or Puerto Rico, but even in these times, friends will make the difference. Kindness makes the difference. Always. 

And my friends are not perfect. But they are great.

Best regards, Lilliana

Dear James, I have thousands of friends in social media, including my close friends, my family and acquaintances, my students, my colleagues. I have a great time with all. Do I care about studies that try to understand social media in the US? I don't. I have had more problems with intelligent people here in RG than with nice souls in Facebook who, when asked, come and help. Maybe intelligence is the problem. Not social media and the alleged shallow souls that populate it. For me is great and I can discern who is close and who is not.

American life is not ready for friendship. That is not my problem. I come from another culture. I see things differently.

Best regards, Lilliana