We live in a world that likes boxes and labels for everything. Friendship is in of itself a box, neatly separated from family or romantic or sexual relationships. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have romantic friendships or sexual ones for that matter. So I wanted to explore the different types of friendships, or the different types of friends you might have, and what needs they might be meeting.
I know I have talking friends, mostly. These are friends with whom I can sit on the couch for hours, with a hot or cold drink and whittle away hours. We can cover an endless array of topics, past, present and future about life and love and relationships. We talk about our kids and our homes and our dreams. We talk about our families, our problems, our jobs, passions and hobbies. We spend time truly listening to each other and just enjoying a sense of connection through sharing.
My friends who lean towards overthinking like I do, we talk about the psychology and feelings behind what we have done, or what someone else has said. We talk through consequences of possible decisions and look at all the predicted outcomes of a big decision. We discuss theories and delve a little deeper into conversations.
But this makes other friends uncomfortable. They prefer to swim closer to the surface, and enjoy time seeing a play or a movie. They love to laugh and dilute the intimacy between us which makes them mildly uncomfortable. But these friends are fun, always up for the other ticket to whatever you are doing and it can be a little like platonic dating. Who doesn’t love that? A romantic friendship can meet the needs of many people in different stages of their lives, although these friendships are typically devoid of much touch.
That doesn’t mean that friends aren’t sometimes affectionate. I certainly have a friend or 2 that are particularly tactile. The first to hug me on a hard day, these friends typically reach out and touch my arm as they share a story, or link arms with me when I walk. They grab my hand across the table and touch my hair or rub my shoulders. They hug and kiss me hello and goodbye with a natural ease, and make me feel very comfortable in their presence.
Typically, I have found that tactile friends aren’t your romantic ones, and their touch is affectionate rather than sexual. However, sexual friendships also do exist; often referred to as friends with benefits. In order to maintain the friends part of the label, these friends will usually shy away from the romantic or tactile categories, preferring to keep a surface level friendship where meetings have a mutually agreeable and desirably pleasurable outcome for both parties.
While your friends with benefits may be flirty with you, it is unwise to think every friend who is flirty with you is interested in anything more than a platonic non tactile connection. Some people are naturally flirtatious and use that as a way of forming connections. Others, on the more sarcastic scale, may banter with you, tease you and leave you a little confused if it is love or hate they are feeling…until you realise they are one in the same.
What’s interesting about all these different types of friendships, is that they all serve a need, and what’s good about them is that one person doesn’t have to meet all of your needs. If you happen to be a widow, perhaps you really appreciate your tactile friend as a way to still experience loving connection although you may never feel ready for a sexual friend. If you are single, you may really value the romantic plus one friend, or even the friend with benefits.
Personally I have had all these types of friends over the years and each has satisfied a need that is not always met within my marriage or romantic relationships prior to that. I can’t always deep dive in conversation with my husband, and he isn’t interested in armchair psychology as I am. He prefers to stay in, while I like going out, so my dating friend is a gem. I adore my tactile friends and how welcomed I feel in their presence as it is not something I have always felt in friendships with women because of my sexuality. Many have been hesitant to send mixed messages or have been more formal around touch to maintain appropriate boundaries, so the women who do embrace you with ease stand out. I have so much fun with my flirty friends and the ones who like to banter with me, and I don’t always need these friends to be the same ones as the ones I can talk to until the cows come home.
I find in my friendships it is important to mentally note which of my friends meets which needs, (some will and do overlap) and be grateful for that contribution to my life. Because it can be all too easy to start getting frustrated when the friend you laugh with doesn’t seem to listen, or when the friend you talk to never wants to spend a night on the town. It’s then that you have to recheck your expectations and remind yourself what you do enjoy about them, while reminding yourself that you have other friends for those other needs.
When you start exploring what friends meet which needs, you may even discover needs you didn’t even know you had. Like my friend who is kind of like one of the family. She is good with my kids, particularly my son, and this is valuable to me in ways I didn’t realise because my son’s biological father wasn’t around by the time he was born, so I had obviously been walking around wanting to find people who WOULD love my boy as I did. I wasn’t conscious of this need until she met it, yet as soon as she did, I knew I loved her.
A few of my friends I have known since childhood or adolescence, and although I am not consciously thinking about how I need friends that tie me to my past and who know me so well because they have always known me, when I think about them, sometimes it does feel as though we are the only people who truly, deeply and profoundly “know” and understand each other.
And I am sure I am yet to meet many more wonderful women who are to become my friends that may meet needs I either do not currently hold or do not know I hold. That is the magic of friendships and why we continue growing and nurturing them and making them all throughout our time on this earth. Some friends will stop meeting the needs that you have, or you may stop meeting theirs, or your needs may change, but the beauty is that more people are coming, or friends may change what needs they meet over time.
A divorced friend who never liked to go out when they were married might suddenly become your plus one friend, while they used to like to deep dive into conversations they may now prefer to just keep it light and fun. Or maybe they used to keep it light but now they like to get deeper because they are going through something! Or I might get a diagnosis that presents a new need for people going through the same thing that can relate.
The important thing is to know that our friends are important, they do meet certain needs we have and we should not ever rely one person, romantic or platonic to cover all the bases. The best part about that is that we can also play to our own strengths in our friendships too and meet whatever needs of our friends come naturally to us and don’t have to meet the needs that are out of our comfort zone.
What needs do your friends meet? Which needs of theirs do you think they meet in return?
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
