Your professor is teaching a class on psychology. Write a post responding to the professor’s question.
In your response, you should
express and support your personal opinion
make a contribution to the discussion in your own words
An effective response will contain at least 100 words. You have ten minutes to write.
Professor
Professor: When people are asked about the decisive factor in determining the lasting time of friendship, they usually mention something very obvious, like being friendly or kind. But there are thousands of other elements that have a huge impact on how long we maintain our relationship with friends. What factors—other than friendliness and kindness—would you choose as being important in your long-term relationship with your friends? Why?
Wendy
Wendy: Common interests with friends help us to stay connected over a long time. With common interests, we could have so many shared experiences. For example, if you both love cooking, you could try out a new recipe together. Or every time an episode of your favorite show comes out, you could talk on the phone. We all have moments like this and this shared interest is like an anchor that generates exclusivity between you and your friends, which could cement or solidify the friendship.
Jacobs
Jacobs: I think long-term friendship requires a reciprocal commitment. That means the exchange of something between people. For example, helping each other during crisis is a decisive factor to deepen our intimacy with friends. When our friends are having a rough week, a phone call, a patient listening, or a care package of snacks to them would help turn a whole week.
I don’t think we need to have similar interests to be friends. Like my best friend Precious and I, she studies biochemistry and is not that sporty, while I’m athletic. We are completely different, but we are great friends. And I agree with Jacobs that mutual exchange of something is the most important thing in deciding friendship. But we don’t necessarily have to help each other out every time the other person is in trouble, it’s just not practical. In my opinion, this is a realistic world, whether we could facilitate each other’s development determines how long we would maintain the friendship. We need listen to each other and cooperate with each other and move toward a better future. Conversely, if we hang around with weasels and losers, we would be spiraling down and all whine about how wretched life is. But in the long run we are not going anywhere and it’s painful. So when we have friends who want the best for the best part of us, we can be together for a long time, probably through our life time.
