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FRIENDSHIP, ONE OF THE MORE COMPLEX and illusory relationships that exist among humans, is a difficult and complicated aspect of intimacy. The dictionary (Funk & Wagnells, 1945) defines a friend as one who entertains "regard or respect for another … who takes a strong interest in another's welfare … a trustworthy companion (p. 982). As such it evokes almost every kind of human emotional experience. This includes aspects of hopefulness, trust and love in the context of communion, and cynicism in the face of disappointment and betrayal. But, as Sullivan (1954, p. 20) noted: "… one realizes that statements are not things that can be rigidly fixed as to meaning by Webster's or the Oxford Dictionary, but that they are only approximations, sometimes remote approximations, of what is meant" (p. 191).
Friendship occurs on many levels, in many roles, and under many guises. It can exist between siblings, parent and child, between lovers, and between the most unlikely of pairs or groups. So fundamentally a vital facet of human connection, it can flourish in the most arduous circumstances and trying, painful conditions—in a desert, in the midst of cactus, scorpions and snakes, or in the barrenness of frozen wastes. It can be steadfast and loyal, despite episodes of concomitant hate. It is an interpersonal process that provides the kind of consensual validation that is so necessary a part of intimacy, that Sullivan (1956) underscored it in his discussion of the preadolescent era as a key factor in the development of interpersonal integration and a true sense of self, through chumship.