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Friendship, a state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people. In all cultures, friendships are important relationships throughout a person’s life span.

Friendships are not always harmonious, however, and young children may engage in conflict with their friends. In fact, in early childhood, friends tend to engage in more conflict than nonfriends. Yet, friends also expend more effort to resolve conflict and are more successful at such resolution than are nonfriends. Conflict resolution is frequently seen as one of the important social skills that young children develop within their earliest friendships.

School-age friendships are differentiated from early-childhood friendships in a number of ways. Friendships in middle childhood are more stable over time than friendships in early childhood, yet typically less than adolescent or adult friendships. In addition, friendship nominations are much more frequently reciprocated in middle childhood than in early childhood. Although same-sex (versus other-sex) friendships compose the significant majority of friendships in early and middle childhood, there is a sharp decline in the proportion of other-sex friendships in middle childhood. A high proportion of same-sex friendships remain until adolescence.

Some individuals form friendships with other-sex individuals to whom they were initially romantically attracted. Conversely, some other-sex friendships evolve into romantic relationships. Even more commonly, these friendships can provide opportunities for heterosexual youths to find romantic partners, because an other-sex friend may introduce them to someone who becomes a boyfriend or girlfriend. Although far less is known about the links between friendship and the development of romantic relationships among homosexual adolescents, some research suggests that for both homosexual and heterosexual youths, other-sex and same-sex friendships may serve as a learning ground for developing the intimacy and connectedness that are part of most adult romantic relationships.

Friends are those who help in any situation without expecting anything in return. Friendship is the beautiful feeling where there is encouragement and support all the time, not only through words but also in the actions . It doesn't matter how many years of friendship but understanding is most important in friendships.

Relationships are different from friendships in my life. Friends play a very important role. Not by caste, creed or religion, once a friend is always a friend.

Article written by : 

Nisha Favia Ferrao
St Aloysius Institute of Education, Mangaluru