With the advent of social media attempting to redefine friendship, we cannot deny the fact that, over the years, the meaning of friendship has been watered down to 'likes', 'follows' or some other hip social media terminology. Real friendship however, embodies way more and as years go by, as we grow older, we tend to re-evaluate our position in the lives of others as well as their position in ours to see if needs are being met .
According to a 2013 survey among Americans aged 16 and older, regarding the qualities they are looking for in a close friend. This statistic only shows the top five answers to that question. 81 percent of the respondents stated a close friend has to be loyal.
Asides being loyal, it is almost impossible for one friend to meet our needs as personalities vary and going by this hypothesis, it only makes sense to have many friends who meet out various needs. I personally have about 10 friends in all my 3 Three decades on this planet(that's a lot of years), lol. These 10 play several roles. Some more than one and some as many as three. In a world where a lot depends on unplanned opportunities, I would suggest you have at least four friends. At least two should be very close friends. I say this because the more friends you have, the more opportunities you're open to. This is not considering the fact that it has been proven that loners live shorter lives compared to their more social counterparts.
Enough of the rambling, here are a list of 6 people you should have on your team and their traits so when looking to add up to your friends list, think of the benefits you could be getting from them.
Remember that as you rack these people up and build your friendship with them, you might need to look within and ask yourselves what roles you play in their lives as well.
