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Student Opinion

15 Prompts for Talking and Writing About Friendship

Questions to help students reflect on the meaning of friendship in their lives

By Natalie Proulx

Who are your closest friends? How much do you share with them? Do you actually like your friends? What have you learned from them?

Below, we’ve rounded up 15 questions we’ve asked students over the years all about friendship. You can use them as prompts for writing or discussion, inside the classroom or out. We hope they’ll inspire you to reflect on your friendships, consider how you can strengthen the ones you have, and motivate you to reach out and make new ones.

Each prompt includes an excerpt from a related New York Times article, essay or photo; a link to the related piece; and several questions to help you think deeply about it. Many of these questions are still open for comment from students 13 or older.

You can find even more ideas for teaching and learning about friendship in our related lesson plan: How Students Can Cultivate Meaningful Friendships Using The New York Times .

1. Who Are Your Friends?

Do you have a “best friend,” a few close friends or a large group of friends? What interests, experiences, passions and circumstances forge those relationships? What are some of your favorite memories or admirable characteristics you associate with your friends?

Use this Picture Prompt to talk or write about your most important friendships.

2. How Alike Are You and Your Friends?

Did you know there is science behind how we choose our friends? Research has shown that we tend to befriend people who are much like us in a wide array of characteristics, including age, race, religion, even our handgrip strength.

In this prompt , you’ll read more about the things that bond us, and then share what you and your friends have in common.

3. Do You Have Any Unlikely Friendships?

Though we tend to connect with people who are like us, sometimes friendship happens with someone we’d least expect. That was the case for Spencer Sleyon, a 22-year-old rapper and producer from East Harlem, and Rosalind Guttman, an 81-year-old woman living in a retirement community in Florida, who met playing the Words With Friends game.

Do you have any surprising friendships like this one?

4. How Much Do You Share With Your Friends?

Do you often express your innermost thoughts, feelings and struggles to those closest to you? Or do you tend to keep those things to yourself? Being vulnerable can be scary, but research shows it’s important for building connections with others.

Use this prompt to reflect on what it feels like to open up to your friends, and how you might try to do more of it.

5. Do You Have Satisfying Friendships?

Are internet friendships as fulfilling as in-person ones? In a guest essay, a writer argues that “The kind of presence required for deep friendship does not seem cultivated in many online interactions. Presence in friendship requires ‘being with’ and ‘doing for.’”

Do you agree? Can online “friends” be true friends? Share your opinion.

6. Do You Have Any Close Friends?

Do you prefer to have many casual friends or just a few close ones? What makes a person a “best” friend? Do you wish you had more close friendships? This prompt explores these questions and more, as well as shares expert advice for developing deeper friendships.

7. How Do You React When Your Friendships Change?

Have you ever become less close to a friend over time? Have you ever felt jealousy when your friend joined another friend group? Have you ever had a friendship just fizzle out? These kinds of changes happen all the time, but they can be difficult to navigate.

Tell us what you do when you feel a friendship start to shift.

8. Do Social Media and Smartphones Make Your Friendships Stronger?

Does being able to stay constantly in touch with your friends via social media, texting and location sharing strengthen your friendships and make them easier to maintain? Or does it do the opposite? Weigh in with your experiences on this prompt .

9. Do You Like Your Friends?

It may sound like a strange question, but a 2016 study found that only about half of perceived friendships are mutual. That means you might not even like someone who thinks of you as a best friend. And vice versa.

Is this is true for any of your relationships?

10. How Often Do You Text Your Friends Just to Say ‘Hi’?

When was the last time you texted, called, emailed or messaged a friend just to say “hello”? Research suggests casual check-ins might mean more than we realize. Do you underestimate how much your friends would like hearing from you?

Read what experts have to say and then share your thoughts.

11. Is It Harder for Men and Boys to Make and Keep Friends?

American men appear to be stuck in a “friendship recession,” according to a recent survey. Less than half of men said they were truly satisfied with the number of friendships they had. The same study also found that men are less likely than women to seek emotional support from or share personal feelings with their friends.

Does this reflect your experience? Weigh in.

12. Do You Have Any Intergenerational Friendships?

“When applying to my job, I had no idea of the friendships I would be making with 70+ year old women. They teach me new things every day while I hear their life stories and things they have done,” Laura from Ellisville wrote in response to this prompt.

Do you have any friends who are significantly younger or older than you? What do you think we can gain from these kinds of intergenerational friendships? Tell us here.

13. Have You Ever Been Left Out?

Imagine it’s a Saturday. All your friends told you they were busy, so you’re sitting at home, alone, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. But then you see a post that stops you in your tracks. It’s a picture of all of your friends hanging out together — without you. This is what happened to Hallie Reed in her first semester at college.

Has something like this ever happened to you? Use this prompt to talk or write about how it felt.

14. What Have Your Friends Taught You About Life?

“My friends taught me different perspectives on life.” “My friends have taught me to not care what other people think.” “My friends have taught me to be myself.”

These are just a few of the responses teenagers had to this prompt. What have your friends taught you?

15. Have You Ever Had a Significant Friendship End?

Few relationships are meant to last forever. In a guest essay, Lauren Mechling writes that “even bonds founded on that rare, deeply felt psychic connection between two people” are “bound to fray.”

Have you experienced this with someone with whom you were once very close? What happened? Share your story.

Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public and may appear in print.

Find more Student Opinion questions here. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.

Natalie Proulx joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2017 after working as an English language arts teacher and curriculum writer. More about Natalie Proulx

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A friendship essay is precisely what it sounds like: a paper that students write to describe their relationships with their mates.  It is among the many assignments that students are given in their college institutions.  Writing essays about friendship is a great way to analyze what the connection means to you and reflect on some of your encounters. It can also be used as a tool to improve your closeness and affection. This blog post offers tips you may consider while writing your paper and its outline. It features friendship essay examples that help generate ideas that form the primary focus of your paper.  If you are not ready to waste your time on essay writing, StudyCrumb is here to offer affordable prices and professional writers.

What Is a Friendship Essay?

The definition of friendship essay is quite clear and straightforward. A paper about friends can be described as a write-up on a relationship between two or more people. This interpretation makes it easier to obtain the meaning of friendship essay.  Writing such thematic essay will help you communicate your feelings as well as your thoughts. It allows you to recollect your memories about different encounters you have had in life. It will also help you evaluate qualities of your connection.  While writing, you may have a sequence of events starting from your meet-up, activities you have done together, and how you have sustained the connection. Preparing an essay about friendship can evoke memories from your past that may have been long forgotten.

Purpose of an Essay on Friendship

This kind of essay aims to help you explore its nature and form, its pros and cons, and its role in your life. The importance of friendship essay is that it acts as a reflective tool. It helps you realize the significance of creating and maintaining good relationships with friends. It also explains how these connections contribute to your overall wellness. In addition, an article about friendship may teach you to understand that true friendship is priceless and should stand the test of time.

Ideas to Write a Friendship Essay on

Writing essays about friendship is a more manageable task than drafting a paper about a topic that may require more detailed research. Any excellent essay about true friendship starts with an idea that you can examine.  Below are some unique ideas you can explore:

• What is friendship?
• What does friendship mean to me?
• The value of friendship you cherish in your life.
• Cross-cultural friendships.
• The role of friendship in mental health maintenance.

As you reflect on your relationship with your friend, see if you can write a paper incorporating these themes. Remember to choose an idea that interests you and is relevant to your personal experiences or research. Be sure to support your arguments with evidence and examples from real-life situations, literature, or academic research. Look through our definition essay topics or persuasive essay ideas to find a theme that suits your task best.

Friendship Essay Outline

An essay outline about friendship is a summary of what your write-up will contain but in a less detailed format. You use it to organize and structure your content logically and effectively. It presents the main topics and subtopics hierarchically, allowing writers to see the connection between different parts of the material. The importance of an outline lies in its ability to help writers plan, organize, as well as clarify their ideas. This makes the writing of an essay about friends more efficient, and the final product is more coherent and effective. Here is an example of an outline for a friendship essay.

• Briefly introduce the topic of friendship
• Provide a thesis statement that summarizes the main points of the essay
• Topic sentence
• Your main argument
• Real-life examples that support your key idea
• Supporting evidence
• 3rd Body Paragraph
• Examples or recommendations
• Summarize the main points
• Provide some food for thought

Note that this is a general outline. The exact structure and content of your essay will depend on the specific requirements of your assignment and your personal interests.

Structure of a Friendship Essay

The structure of an essay on friendship typically includes the following three parts.

• Introduction An introduction should grab the reader's attention and provide background information. It should also include a clear thesis statement that sets a path and direction of the friendship essays.
• Body The essay's body is where you will provide evidence and details to underpin your thesis statement. It should consist of several paragraphs supporting and developing a statement of purpose. Each paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of your friendliness, such as its importance, benefits, or challenges.
• Conclusion Briefly summarize the essay's main points and reinforce your principal argument. The conclusion should leave a lasting impression on readers and emphasize your topic's significance. Overall, the structure should be clear and well-organized, allowing the audience to follow your argument and understand the topic's significance.

Friendship Essay Introduction

A good introduction about friendship essay should grab the reader's attention and encourage them to continue reading. This can be achieved through a " hook ," a quote, an interesting fact, or a thought-provoking question. Background information can then be provided to give context to the discussed topic.  The introduction to an essay about friendship should also clearly state your main point or argument of the piece, known as thesis statement. This sets pace for the rest of the paper and gives readers a clear view of what to expect. A friendship essay introduction should be concise, engaging, and provide context for the audience to understand the content fully.

Read more: How to Start off an Essay

Friendship Essay Introduction Example

Here is an example of a friendship essay introduction that sets the stage for a reflective and thought-provoking exploration of the most precious gift in life.

Friendship is a special bond that unites two individuals with common interests, experiences, and emotions. It makes life easier and contributes to our happiness. It is a relationship that transcends race, religion, and socio-economic status and has power to sustain and uplift the spirit of humans. In this essay, I will explore its benefits and how it can contribute to a better world. Through personal anecdotes, I will illustrate the bond's depth and role in our day-to-day lives.

Friendship Essay Thesis Statement

The friendship thesis statement aims to provide a summary of the essay's main point. It can be one or two sentences which you develop as you research. The statement of purpose should focus on the central argument and be supported by evidence presented in the body. The thesis statement about friendship should guide the essay's structure. Its main objective is to provide your reader with a roadmap to follow. It should be specific, concise, and accurately reflect the content in your paper. Understanding what constitutes a strong thesis is crucial for writers as it is integral to every essay writing process.

Friendship Thesis Statement Example

The thesis statement must be clear to readers so that they may quickly recognize it and comprehend the paper's significance. It should act as a blueprint of what to expect. A friendship thesis statement sample could be:

In this essay, I will explore friendship's meaning, its importance, benefits, drawbacks, and how it can contribute to a better world. Through a series of personal anecdotes, I will illustrate the bond's depth and its key role in our lives.

Friendship Essay Body

The body part should include five or more paragraphs. Students will use body paragraphs to elaborate on the key factors that make their connection special.

• Definition and explanation. This friendship body paragraph should start with a definition and a brief explanation of its characteristics and qualities.
• Importance of friends. Discuss why it is vital in your life and how it contributes to personal growth and welfare.
• Types of friendships. A paragraph about friendship should discuss different types of friend's relationships that exist.
• Qualities of a good friend. Discuss standards a great confidant should possess.
• Challenges. Discuss the common problems that friends face.
• Ways to strengthen friendship. Provide tips on reinforcing and maintaining good relationships.
• Conclusion. Sum up the key points made in your essay and reiterate the importance of genuine bonds in life.

Friendship Body Paragraph Example

Below is a friendship body paragraph sample.

How to Spend Free Time with Friends • Outdoor Activities. Spending time in nature is a great way to bond with friends. You can meet, then go for a hike, take a walk, or go to a picnic in a park. This allows you to connect and enjoy the beautiful world around you. • Movie Night. Watching a movie is another fun activity you can do with friends. You can share popcorn, grab snacks, and enjoy a movie together. This is a great way to relax and unwind. • Board Games. Playing board games with friends is a fun and interactive way to spend free time. You can play classic games like Monopoly. This is a great way to challenge each other and have a good time.

Friendship Essay Conclusion

Any conclusion on a friendship essay should sum up the main ideas discussed in your essay and restate the thesis statement. It should leave a lasting impression and provide a closure to your topic. To start writing a conclusion about a friendship essay, commence by rephrasing the thesis statement in different words. Summarize the points discussed in your essay by connecting them back to your statement of purpose. End conclusion with a final thought or call to action that leaves a lasting impression on your reader.  It is vital to keep it concise yet impactful. Avoid introducing new information or arguments, as it can confuse readers. Instead, focus on tying up loose ends and emphasizing main ideas discussed in your essay.

Read more: How to Conclude an Essay

Friendship Essay Conclusion Sample

Here is an example of a friendship essay conclusion:

In conclusion, friendship is an essential aspect of our lives that brings joy, support, and companionship. It is a relationship built on mutual trust, understanding, and love. A true friend will always be there for you, no matter what. As humans, we need sincere friends to help us navigate life's ups and downs and provide emotional support. An understanding friend can withstand any obstacle and bring happiness to our lives. The connection is meant to last a lifetime, whether through shared experiences, interests, or simply a common bond. Ultimately, having a close group of loyal friends who truly care for us is one of the greatest gifts we can receive in life.

How to Write an Essay on Friendship?

To write an essay about friendship, start by brainstorming ideas about what friends mean to you and the benefits of such kinds of relationships. Knowing how to write a good essay about friendship involves selecting a great topic and arranging your content in a manner that has logical flow.

1. Come Up With a Topic About Friendship

To brainstorm essay topics on friendship, consider the following.

• Reflect on your own experiences. Think about your own bonds and encounters you have had with allies. Avoid bad occurrences. This can inspire topics to explore in your essay. To find a subject that interests you, you can also look through internet examples of friend essays.
• Ask questions related to friends, such as "What makes a meaningful connection?" or "How does the quality of your bond change over time?"
• Talk to others. Ask friends, family, or classmates about their experiences. They may have interesting insights that can inspire new topics for your essay.

Ensure that topic you select is appropriate for your report style. For example: 

The Day my Best Friend Changed My Life.

You can start this topic by how you met, narrate your story, and then pick out some attributes of a good friend and the advantages of the relationship. Remember to choose a topic on friendship essay that you feel passionate about and can explore in depth in your essay.

2. Do Research

To research and collect information for the friend essay, follow these steps.

• Start with a general search. Use search engines like Google to find articles, books, and other resources on affection.
• Identify keywords. Determine the most relevant keywords for your essay, such as "essay about a friend." Use them in your search to narrow down results to the most pertinent information.
• Evaluate sources. When you have a list of potential sources, evaluate each to determine their credibility and relevance. Look for sources that are written by experts in the field and that have been peer-reviewed or published in reputable journals.
• Take notes. As you read, take notes on the most important and relevant information.

3. Develop a Friendship Essay Outline

An outline is a useful tool for organizing ideas in an essay and it ensures that your essay has a structure. Before outlining you need to have a clear vision of what your essay will focus on. Then analyze every piece of information that you have and categorize it into headings. An outline of an essay about friendships will comprise a list which consists of each paragraph’s topic sentence . By going through the outline, you are able to examine what purpose each paragraph serves. If you need assistance on how to create an outline for a college essay about friendship use the outline example shown below.

4. Write an Essay on Friendship

Writing an essay about friendship is an exciting task. Below is a sample of how you can write your friendship essay. Friendship is the bond between two or more individuals based on mutual trust, support, and understanding. This connection can develop at any stage of life and even last a lifetime. It is a bond that fills our lives with comfort, laughter, and advice during a hard period. Many different factors can contribute to its formation and success. Having similar needs, mutual interests, and social activities can help sustain the relationship. Another crucial aspect is being ready to support each other through happy and difficult times unconditionally. Trust is also an essential component in the longevity of this connection. In conclusion, friendship is an invaluable treasure that brings joy, comfort, and support to our lives. It provides a safe place in a world that can be harsh and unforgiving. It reminds us that we should always stay true to each other.

5. Proofread Your Friendship Essay

When writing a friendship essay, consider the following for an effective introduction.

• Grab your reader's attention. A good introduction makes them want to continue reading your friendship essay.
• Provide context. Give an overview of the friendship essay and its purpose. This will make readers interested in your work.
• Establish your purpose. Clearly state the main idea or thesis.
• Preview the main points. Briefly summarize key points that will be covered.
• Be concise. An introduction should be short and on point, generally no more than one or two paragraphs.

Remember, your introduction will set tone for the rest of your piece and should encourage your readers to continue reading.

Read more: Essay About Happiness : Tips & Examples

Friendship Essay Examples

A sample essay about friendship can be critical to students, especially when they are researching and collecting information. Free friendship essays help you get ideas on how to write and structure your essay. Below are essay examples about friendship that you can go through to help with your writing and draw inspiration from. Friendship essay example 1

Friendship essay example 2

Essay about friendship sample 3

Example of essay on friendship 4

Friendship Essay Writing Tips

Here are some extra tips you need to know that will motivate you to write a friendship short essay.

• You could start with a quote, an anecdote, or a surprising fact.
• Use examples from your own life to illustrate your points in your school college essay about friendship, as this will make your essay more relatable and interesting to read.
• Friendship titles for essays should be clear and straightforward. They should also reflect your main points.
• Describe the aspect of the bond that, in your opinion, is most crucial. It is possible to personalize something that means an entirely different thing to various individuals.

Bottom Line on Friendship Essay Writing

Your central task is to understand what is a friendship essay even before you start writing. Friendship essays explore the nature of our relationships and their various aspects. They can take various forms, from short reflective essays to longer, more analytical pieces. These papers can discuss qualities that make a good friend, the benefits of your relationship, or challenges of maintaining close relationships. Examples of short essays about friendship could be a personal reflection, exploring the unique bond between the writer and their friend and what they hope to continue gaining from each other when they cross paths in future. If you struggle with other papers, feel free to check out our writing guides. From an essay about bullying to a world peace essay , we’ve got you covered.

FAQ About Friendship Essay

1. may i use friendship quotes for the essay.

Yes, it is always a winning step. You can write an essay on friendship with quotes either as the title of your essay or as an introductory phrase. You can also include it in the body of your work while narrating your story.

2. How to write a hook for an essay of friendship?

An essay should hook your reader's attention and make them want to read your story. When writing essays about friendship, you can describe a unique situation in which your friends helped you. You can also end your introduction with a catchy quote, such as Squad goals! Some other quotes that you can use include:

• A road to a friend's house is never long.
• Count your age with friends and years.
• True friend is seen through the heart, not through the eyes.

3. Explain the importance of friendship essay.

The importance of friendship essay is that it teaches students to express their thoughts and feelings about confidants and benefits they obtain from this connection. It also acts as a reflective tool. Friend essays also help students realize advantages of creating and maintaining good relationships with friends and how these linkages contribute to your overall wellness and welfare.

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

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Essay on Friendship

List of essays on friendship, essay on friendship – short essay for kids (essay 1 – 150 words), essay on friendship – 10 lines on friendship written in english (essay 2 – 250 words), essay on friendship – for school students (class 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) (essay 3 – 300 words), essay on friendship – for students (essay 4 – 400 words), essay on friendship (essay 5 – 500 words), essay on friendship – introduction, benefits and qualities (essay 6 – 600 words), essay on friendship – essay on true friendship (essay 7 – 750 words), essay on friendship – importance, types, examples and conclusion (essay 8 – 1000 words).

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Who is in this world does not have a friend?

A friend, with whom you just love to spend your time, can share your joys and sorrows. Most importantly you need not fake yourself and just be what you are. That is what friendship is all about. It is one of the most beautiful of the relations in the world. Students of today need to understand the values of friendship and therefore we have composed different long essays for students as well as short essays.

Audience: The below given essays are exclusively written for school students (Class 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Standard).

Introduction:

Friendship is considered as one of the treasures that anyone can possess. God has given us the liberty to choose friends because they are for our lifetime. It is quite normal for our parents and siblings to love us because they are our own blood but a friend is someone who is initially a stranger and then takes his/her place above all the other relations. Friendship is nothing but pure love without any expectations.

Role of a Friend:

True friends share and support each other even during the toughest of times. A true friend is one who feels happy for our success, who feel sad for our failures, fight with us for silly things and hugs us the next second, gets angry on us when we do any mistakes. Friendship is all about having true friends who can understand us without the need for us to speak.

Conclusion:

Friendship is very essential for a happy life. Even a two-minute chat with a friend will make us forget our worries. That is the strength of friendship.

Friendship is a divine relationship, which is defined by neither blood nor any other similarity. Friends are those you can choose for yourself in spite of the difference you both have from each other. A good friend in need will do wonders in your life, whenever you are in need of self-realization, upbringing your confidence and more.

Friendship serves you best not only in your happiest moments but also when you feel low in emotions. A life without a good friend is not at all complete and an emptiness will be felt all the time you think of sharing your emotion that can’t be told to anyone else.

Honesty and Patience in Friendship:

To maintain and keep going with a good deep friendship, honesty is the most important factor. You should choose a person who can be cent percent honest with you in all perspective like emotions, decision making, etc. Trustworthy friendship will help you to take better decisions and choose a better path for your future well-being.

Tolerance and patience with each other are another important characteristics of long-lasting friendship. Accepting the differences, friends should be able to be with each other in all situations. As a friend, the person should lead the other to success by being a motivation and criticize the person if they choose the wrong path.

Friendship will give you sweet and happy memories that can be cherished for a lifetime and if you succeed in maintaining that precious relation, then you are the luckiest person in this world. Love and care for each other will cherish the relationship and helps the person to appreciate each thing done without any fail.

Of all the different relations which we indulge in, friendship is considered to be the purest of them all. Friendship is the true confluence of souls with like minded attitude that aids in seamless conversation and the best of times. It is believed that a person who doesn’t have any friend lives one of the toughest lives.

The Desire to Belong:

Each one of us have been so programmed that we need a companion even if it’s not romantic, someone just to tag along. There are several definitions of friendship and it is upon you as to how you believe your relation to be. Friendship can happen when you are simply sharing a bowl of food with a person day after day. It can be expressed in the way you silently care for someone even when they may not be aware of your existence.

The Little Moments that Matter:

It is giving up the little things you love dearly for the sake of someone you cherish a great deal. Friendship often refers to the little moments of senseless laugh you two share when the rest of the world starts to look bleak. It is to know what your friend needs and being there for them even when the rest of the world has turned their back towards them.

Friendship is the kind of relation which sometimes even exceeds the realms of love because it is all about giving without even once bothering to sense what you shall get back. Every time spent is special because when you are with friends, you don’t feel the blues!

The Bottom-Line:

Of course the definition of friendship is going to vary a great deal from one person to another. But, remember one thing, when you are friends with someone, be prepared to put your heart on the line for their happiness because friendship often manifests into love, even if it is not romantic, it always is true!

Friendship is the most valuable as well as precious gifts of life. Friendship is one of the most valued relationship. People who have good friends enjoy the most in their live. True friendship is based on loyalty & support. A good friend is a person who will stand with you when times are tough. A friend is someone special on whom you can rely on to celebrate a special moment. Friendship is like a life asset and it can lead us to success. It all depends on our choice how we choose our friends.

The quality of friendship is essential for happiness. The benefits of healthy friendship remains long-life. In addition, having a strong friend circle also improves our self-confidence. Due to the strong relationship, we get much emotional support during our bad times. True friendship is a feeling of love & care.

Real friendship cannot be built within limited boundaries like caste or creed. It gives us a feeling that someone really needs us & we are not alone. This is true that man cannot live alone. True friends are needed in every stage of life to survive. A true friend can be an old person or a child. But it is generally believed that we make friend with people who are of the same age as ours. Same age group can give you the freedom to share anything.

The selection of a true friend is also a challenging task. We have to carefully make our friend selection. Friends might come & go. They will make you laugh & cry. Wrong selection can create various problems for you. In the modern world, many youngsters become a social nuisance. The reason behind it is wrong & bad friendships.

But if we successfully choose the right person as a friend then our life becomes easier. It doesn’t matter who you are, what type of clothes you wear. The most important thing is trust because the relation of friendship stands on the pillars of trust.

Friendship is a relation which can make or break us in every stage of life. But in other words, friendship is an asset which is really precious. Obviously, it is also not so easy to maintain friendships. It demands your time as well as efforts. Last but not the least, it is hard to find true friendship but once you succeed in this task you will have a wonderful time. In exchange for that a friend will only need your valuable time and trust.

The idea of friendship is either heartwarming or gives cold feet depending on individuals and the types of friendships. In the current world, friendships have had different definitions based on the morality and civilization of the society. Ideally, friendship is defined as the state of mutual trust between individuals or parties. Trust is an important component of friendship because it determines the reliability and longevity of the friendship. Trust is built through honest communications between the individuals and interested parties.

Once trust has been established, mutual understanding and support being to form the resulting in a friendship. This friendship can be broken through lack of trust. Trust can be breached through deceit and/ or some people, it differs with the frequencies. There are people who will break friendships after only one episode of dishonesty whereas some people give second chances and even more chances. Friendship types determine the longevity and the causes of breakups. The importance of friendship in the lives of individuals is the reason why friendships are formed in the first place.

Types of Friendships:

According to Aristotle’s Nichomachean ethics, there are three types of friendships. The friendships are based on three factors i.e. utility, pleasure and goodness. The first type of friendship is based on utility and has been described as a friendship whereby both parties gain from each other.

This type of friendship is dependent on the benefits and that is what keeps the friendship going. This type of friendships do not last long because it dissolves as soon as the benefits are outsourced or when other sources are found outside the friendship. The friendship was invented for trade purposes because when two people with opposite things that depend on each other re put together, trade is maximized.

The second type of friendship is based on pleasure. This is described as friendship in which two individuals are drawn to each other based on desires of pleasure and is characterized by passionate feelings and feelings of belonging. This type of friendship can ether last long or is short-lived depending on the presence of the attraction between the two parties.

The third type of friendship is based on goodness. In this friendship, the goodness of people draw them to each other and they usually have the same virtues. The friendship involves loving each other and expecting goodness. It takes long to develop this kind of friendship but it usually lasts longest and is actually the best kind of friendship to be in. the importance of such a friendship is the social support and love.

In conclusion, friendships are important in the lives of individuals. Trust builds and sustains friendships. The different types of friendships are important because they provide benefits and social support. Friendships provide a feeling of belonging and dependence. The durability of friendships is dependent on the basis of its formation and the intention during the formation. Friendships that last long are not based on materialistic gain, instead, they are based on pure emotion.

Friendship is an emotion of care, mutual trust, and fondness among two persons. A friend might be a work-mate, buddy, fellow student or any individual with whom we feel an attachment.

In friendship, people have a mutual exchange of sentiments and faith too. Usually, the friendship nurtures more amongst those people who belong to a similar age as they possess the same passions, interests, sentiments, and opinions. During the school days, kids who belong to the similar age group have a common dream about their future and this makes them all of them get closer in friendship.

In the same way, employees working in business organizations also make friends as they are working together for attaining the organizational objectives. It does not matter that to which age group you belong, friendship can happen at any time of your life.

Benefits of Friendship:

Sometimes friendship is essential in our life. Below are a few benefits of friendship.

1. It’s impossible to live your life alone always but friendship fills that gap quickly with the friend’s company.

2. You can easily pass the rigidities of life with the friendship as in your distress period your friends are always there to help you.

3. Friendship teaches you how to remain happy in life.

4. In case of any confusion or problem, your friendship will always benefit you with good opinions.

True and Dishonest Friendship:

True friendship is very rare in today’s times. There are so many persons who support only those people who are in power so that they can fulfil their selfish motives below the name of friendship. They stay with friends till the time their selfish requirements are achieved. Dishonest friends leave people as soon as their power gets vanished. You can find these types of self-seeking friends all around the world who are quite hurtful than enemies.

Finding a true friendship is very difficult. A true friend helps the other friend who is in need. It does not matter to him that his friend is right or wrong but he will always support his friend at the time of his difficulty.

Carefulness in the Selection of Friendship:

You must be very careful while choosing friends. You should nurture your friendship with that person who does not leave you in your bad times easily. Once you get emotionally attached to the wrong person you cannot finish your friendship so soon. True friendship continues till the time of your last breaths and does not change with the passing time.

Friendship with a bad person also affects your own thoughts and habits. Therefore, a bad person should not be chosen in any type of circumstances. We must do friendship with full attention and carefulness.

Best Qualities of Good Friendship:

Good friendship provides people an enormous love to each other.

The below are the important qualities of good friendship:

1. Good friendship is always faithful, honest, and truthful.

2. People pay attention and take note of others thoughts in good friendship.

3. Persons quickly forget and let off the mistakes of the other friend. In fact, they accept their friend in the way they are actually.

4. You are not judged on the basis of your success, money or power in it.

5. Friends do not feel shy to provide us with valuable opinions for our welfare.

6. People always share their joyful times with their good friends and also stay ready to help their friends in the time of need.

7. True friends also support others in their professional as well as personal life. They encourage their friends in the area of their interest.

Friendship is established over the sacrifice, love, faith, and concern of mutual benefit. True Friendship is a support and a blessing for everybody. All those males and females who have true and genuine friends are very lucky really.

Friendship can simply be defined as a form of mutual relationship or understanding between two people or more who interact and are attached to one another in a manner that is friendly. A friendship is a serious relationship of devotion between two or more people where people involved have a true and sincere feeling of affection, care and love towards each other devoid of any misunderstanding and without demands.

Primarily friendship happens between people that have the same sentiments, feelings and tastes. It is believed that there is no limit or criteria for friendship. All of the different creed, religion, caste, position, sex and age do not matter when it comes to friendship even though friendships can sometimes be damaged by economic disparity and other forms of differentiation. From all of these, it can be concluded that real and true friendship is very possible between people that have a uniform status and are like-minded.

A lot of friends we have in the world today only remain together in times of prosperity and absence of problems but only the faithful, sincere and true friends remain all through the troubles, times of hardships and our bad times. We only discover who our bad and good friends are in the times where we don’t have things going our way.

Most people want to be friends with people with money and we can’t really know if our friends are true when we have money and do not need their help, we only discover our true friends when we need their help in terms of money or any other form of support. A lot of friendships have been jeopardised because of money and the absence or presence of it.

Sometimes, we might face difficulty or crises in our friendships because of self-respect and ego. Friendships can be affected by us or others and we need to try to strike a balance in our friendships. For our friendship to prosper and be true, we need satisfaction, proper understanding and a trustworthy nature. As true friends, we should never exploit our friends but instead do our utmost best to motivate and support them in doing and attaining the very best things in life.

The true meaning of friendship is sometimes lost because of encounters with fake friends who have used and exploited us for their own personal benefits. People like this tend to end the friendship once they get what they want or stab their supposed friends in the back just to get what they think is best for them. Friendship is a very good thing that can help meet our need for companionship and other emotional needs.

In the world we live in today, it is extremely difficult to come across good and loyal friends and this daunting task isn’t made any easier by the lie and deceit of a lot of people in this generation. So, when one finds a very good and loyal important, it is like finding gold and one should do everything to keep friends like that.

The pursuit of true friendship Is not limited to humans, we can as well find good friends in animals; for example, it is a popular belief that dogs make the best friends. It is very important to have good friends as they help us in times and situations where we are down and facing difficulties. Our true friends always do their best to save us when we are in danger and also provide us with timely and good advice. True friends are priceless assets in our lives, they share our pains and sorrow, help provide relief to us in terrible situations and do their best to make us happy.

Friends can both be the good or the bad types. Good friends help push us on the right path in life while on the other hand, bad friends don’t care about us but only care about themselves and can lead us into the wrong path; because of this, we have to be absolutely careful when choosing our friends in this life.

Bad friends can ruin our lives completely so we have to be weary of them and do our best to avoid bag friends totally. We need friends in our life that will be there for us at every point in time and will share all of our feeling with us, both the good and bad. We need friends we can talk to anytime we are feeling lonely, friends that will make us laugh and smile anytime we are feeling sad.

What is friendship? It is the purest form of relationship between two individual with no hidden agenda. As per the dictionary, it is the mutual affection between people. But, is it just a mutual affection? Not always, as in the case of best friends, it is far beyond that. Great friends share each other’s feelings or notions which bring a feeling of prosperity and mental fulfillment.

A friend is a person whom one can know deeply, as and trust for eternity. Rather than having some likeness in the idea of two people associated with the friendship, they have some extraordinary qualities yet they want to be with each other without changing their uniqueness. By and large, friends spur each other without censuring, however at times great friends scrutinize do affect you in a positive manner.

Importance of Friendship:

It is very important to have a friend in life. Each friend is vital and their significance in known to us when certain circumstances emerge which must be supported by our friends. One can never feel lonely in this world on the off chance that he or she is embraced by true friends. Then again, depression wins in the lives of the individuals who don’t have friends regardless of billions of individuals present on the planet. Friends are particularly vital amid times of emergency and hardships. On the off chance that you wind up experiencing a hard time, having a friend to help you through can make the change simpler.

Having friends you can depend on can help your confidence. Then again, an absence of friends can make you feel lonely and without help, which makes you powerless for different issues, for example, sadness and drug abuse. Having no less than one individual you can depend on will formulate your confidence.

Choosing Your Friends Wisely:

Not all friends can instill the positivity in your life. There can be negative effects as well. It is very important to choose your friends with utmost wisdom. Picking the right friend is somewhat troublesome task however it is extremely important. In the event that for instance a couple of our dear friends are engaged with negative behaviour patterns, for example, smoking, drinking and taking drugs, at some point or another we will be attracted to their bad habits as well. This is the reason behind why it is appropriate to settle on an appropriate decision with regards to making friends.

Genuine friendship is truly a gift delighted in by a couple. The individuals who have it ought to express gratitude toward God for having genuine pearls in their lives and the individuals who don’t have a couple of good friends ought to always take a stab at better approaches to anchor great friends. No organization is superior to having a friend close by in the midst of need. You will stay cheerful in your one-room flat on the off chance that you are surrounded by your friends; then again, you can’t discover satisfaction even in your estate in the event that you are far away from others.

Types of Friends:

There is variety everywhere, so why not in friends. We can see different types of friends during our journey of life. For instance, your best friend at school is someone with whom you just get along the most. That friend, especially in the case of girls, may just get annoyed even if you talk to another of your friend more than her. Such is the childish nature of such friendships that at times it is difficult for others to identify whether you are best friends or competitors.

Then there is another category of your siblings. No matter how much you deny, but your siblings or your elder brother and sisters are those friends of yours who stay on with you for your entire life. You have a different set of friendship with them as you find yourself fighting with them most of the times. However, in times of need, you shall see that they are first ones standing behind you, supporting you.

There is another category of friends called professional friends. You come across such friends only when you grow up and choose a profession for yourself. These friends are usually from the same organisation and prove to be helpful during your settling years. Some of them tend to stay on with you even when you change companies.

Friendship Examples from History:

History has always taught us a lot. Examples of true friendship are not far behind. We have some famous example from history which makes us realise the true value of friendship. The topmost of them are the Krishna and Sudama friendship. We all must have read or heard as to how after becoming a king when Krishna met Sudama, his childhood friend, he treated him with honour even though Sudama was a poor person. It teaches us the friendship need not be between equals. It has to be between likeminded people. Next example is of Karna and Duryodhana, again from the Mahabharat era.

Despite knowing the fact that the Pandavas were his brothers, Karna went on to fight alongside Duryodhan as he is his best friend and even laid down his life for him. What more example of true friendship can one find? Again from the same era, Krishna and Arjun are also referred to as the best of the friends. Bhagavad Gita is an example of how a true friend can guide you towards positivity in life and make you follow the path of Dharma. Similarly, there are numerous examples from history which teach us the values of true friendship and the need to nourish such for own good.

Whether you accept or deny it, a friend plays an important role in your life. In fact, it is very important to have a friend. However, at the same time, it is extremely important to choose the friends wisely as they are the ones who can build you or destroy you. Nonetheless, a friend’s company is something which one enjoys all through life and friends should be treated as the best treasure a man can have.

Friendship , Relationship

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How to Make the Lasting Friendships You Want

When I was a young adult, I loved the song “Did I Happen to Mention” by Julia Fordham. In the song, Fordham laments the potential loss of her lover and sings, “I need another good friend like I need…a hole in my head”—a sentiment I probably agreed with at the time. After all, I had lots of great friends. But compared to a romantic partner, they seemed less important somehow.


That kind of thinking may be common, but it’s very wrong-headed, writes psychologist Marisa Franco in her new book, Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends . Our friends are important to our happiness and well-being, she argues, and they often fulfill us even more than other relationships can.

“We choose our friends, which allows us to surround ourselves with people who root for us, get us, and delight in our joy,” she writes. “Through friendship, we can self-select into some of the most affirming, safe, and sacred relationships of our lives.” The benefits of having close friends in our lives are multiple, says Franco. They make us feel whole, increase our ability to be empathic, and help us to figure out who we are. Friendships are important for healthy aging , too. And they benefit society as a whole, as friendships increase trust and cross-group friendships can decrease prejudice .

Yet some of us make friends more easily than others, depending partly on our “attachment style”—how secure or insecure we’ve learned to feel in relationships. If we assume we are worthy of love and trust friends to provide it (a secure attachment style), it’s likely we’ll have many warm, supportive friendships. But, if we fear abandonment from others, we may act clingingly (anxious attachment style) or act as if we don’t care and withdraw from others (avoidant attachment style). Franco helps people identify their own attachment style (or that of their friends) and gives wise advice for how to prevent an insecure attachment style from torpedoing promising relationships.

If you’re unsure how to make friends or deepen intimacy, Franco has lots of tips for you that can help. 

Take the initiative

It’s obvious that you won’t make friends if no one takes the initiative to connect. But it can seem daunting to do that, especially if you assume friendships need to happen organically, without effort (an attitude likely to stymie friendship) or people won’t like you if they get to know you (a fear that is likely overblown ).

Friendship takes effort, but it can happen in a number of ways. Franco suggests that if you’re more introverted, reconnecting with an old friend you haven’t seen in a while may work well. Or, if you’re more extroverted, you can pay attention when you experience moments of connection with new acquaintances and take a step toward building friendship—maybe asking if they’d like to get coffee sometime.

“We have to put ourselves out there and try. It’s a process of reaching out over and over again,” writes Franco.

To that end, it can be good to join groups or classes that meet more than once, so that you have multiple opportunities to take the initiative. Anticipating more regular contact with someone can be important for building friendships, too.

Increase your willingness to be vulnerable

This is an important part of friendship that too many people ignore. We feel closer to people when we are vulnerable with them, sharing our fears, insecurities, or regrets. And we can grow in intimacy by responding well when others divulge their own foibles to us.

“Understanding and feeling attuned to others’ vulnerability is a key to developing and deepening friendships—and missing those cues can jeopardize them,” says Franco.

People may be fearful that others will judge them if they share things they feel ashamed of. But research suggests the opposite —you endear yourself to others when you share intimacies with them, as long as you don’t overshare or use vulnerability to manipulate someone. This may help explain why the famous “Fast Friends” exercise, where two strangers ask and answer 36 increasingly personal questions , works so well .

One warning, though, says Franco: If you are vulnerable with someone who is avoidant, they may not react as well as you’d like. “Since they are more uncomfortable with emotion, when others are vulnerable, the intimacy, trust, and love inherent to the interaction may be eclipsed by their discomfort with feelings.”

Let people see your authentic self

Being your own authentic self, writes Franco, is when “we aren’t triggered, when we can make intentional, rather than reactive, decisions about how we want to show up in the world.” In other words, it’s not about “telling it like it is” or being brutally honest even if it means putting others down. It’s feeling safe enough to access our higher self and being congruent with our values.

For achieving more authenticity with others, Franco suggests practicing mindfulness, which helps you to access and accept your moment-to-moment experiences. In this way, you can know your inner self better and be less prone to acting defensively when you feel uncomfortable, and more resilient if someone rejects you.

However, while being authentic can build friendships, it may be difficult to be yourself when faced with prejudice. “In a perfect world, we would all be loved in our most authentic form, but in the real world, privilege plays into whose authentic self is welcomed and whose is rejected,” writes Franco. It’s important to “decouple rejection from self-condemnation” and, when necessary, to vet people before bringing your whole self to the relationship.

Be productive with your anger, when it’s needed

All close relationships can involve conflicts or hurts that need repair . So, it’s important to use anger wisely in these situations. Franco recommends letting a friend know when you’re upset with them and why, but with a focus on preserving the relationship (anger born of hope) rather than lashing out with blame or punishment (anger born of despair).

“Anger of despair is the destructive force we typically associate with anger. Anger of hope, however, is a healing force that can deepen friendships, one that we should embrace,” she writes.

That means not letting things fester, but expressing upsets by saying how much you value the friendship, using “I” statements, and admitting fault for your role in creating the conflict. Friends who work through conflict are closer because of it and have more satisfying relationships.

Act with generosity

Generosity can be the social glue that ties people together, and the same goes for friendship. People who are kind and generous are more likely to have many friends and have greater well-being.

Franco recommends performing acts of kindness to cement friendships—like sending a hand-written card, baking a treat, offering to pick up someone from the airport, or letting someone borrow a jacket. Just be sure that you aren’t sacrificing yourself by offering too much generosity to too many people. Otherwise, you may burn out—or cause your relationships to suffer .

Giving with an agenda—to make someone love you, for example—or having generosity only go in one direction probably won’t result in friendship. In those cases, it may be best to cut ties or set your expectations lower for that friendship.

On the other hand, Franco says, you do need to show up when a good friend is in crisis—even when it’s a sacrifice.

“For friendship to flourish, we need to know if we call a friend crying because we got fired from our job at the nuclear power plant, they won’t text back, ‘I am currently unavailable,’” she writes.

Show affection

As James Taylor once sang, “Shower the people you love with love. Show them the way that you feel.” That includes your friends. Showing affection is a sure way to make someone feel valued.

Yet some people may fear expressing affection for a friend, worrying that it will be unwanted or misconstrued. This may be especially true for men in cultures where homophobia is rampant or where men are raised not to feel their feelings for other men—or even women.

Still, research shows that outward expressions of caring are an important ingredient in friendship for everyone. You may need to tailor your affection to your friend’s tolerance for closeness—physical or emotional. But people like people who like them, and showing affection communicates that you like someone—while withholding it can be a relationship killer.

“The more you show affection, the more likely you are to not just make friends, but also deepen the friendships you already have,” writes Franco.

All in all, Franco’s central message is that we have the power to strengthen friendships, if only we invest in them. And it’s worth it, because when we value our friendships, we can transform our lives for the better.

“Don’t wait for a calamity to rock you into realizing friendship is priceless,” she writes. “Engrave friendship on your list. Make being a good friend a part of who you are, because a deep and true core that needs to belong lies within us all.”

About the Author

Jill Suttie

Jill Suttie, Psy.D. , is Greater Good ’s former book review editor and now serves as a staff writer and contributing editor for the magazine. She received her doctorate of psychology from the University of San Francisco in 1998 and was a psychologist in private practice before coming to Greater Good .

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Essays About Friendships: Top 6 Examples and 8 Prompts

Friendships are one of life’s greatest gifts. To write a friendship essay, make this guide your best friend with its essays about friendships plus prompts.

Every lasting relationship starts with a profound friendship. The foundations that keep meaningful friendships intact are mutual respect, love, laughter, and great conversations. Our most important friendships can support us in our most trying times. They can also influence our life for the better or, the worse, depending on the kind of friends we choose to keep. 

As such, at an early age, we are encouraged to choose friends who can promote a healthy, happy and productive life. However, preserving our treasured friendships is a lifelong process that requires investments in time and effort.

6 Informative Essay Examples

1. the limits of friendships by maria konnikova, 2. friendship by ralph waldo emerson, 3. don’t confuse friendships and business relationships by jerry acuff, 4. a 40-year friendship forged by the challenges of busing by thomas maffai, 5. how people with autism forge friendships by lydia denworth, 6.  friendships are facing new challenges thanks to the crazy cost of living by habiba katsha , 1. the importance of friendship in early childhood development, 2. what makes a healthy friendship, 3. friendships that turn into romance, 4. long-distance friendship with social media, 5. dealing with a toxic friendship, 6. friendship in the workplace, 7. greatest friendships in literature, 8. friendships according to aristotle .

…”[W]ithout investing the face-to-face time, we lack deeper connections to them, and the time we invest in superficial relationships comes at the expense of more profound ones.”

Social media is challenging the Dunbar number, proving that our number of casual friends runs to an average of 150. But as we expand our social base through social media, experts raise concerns about its effect on our social skills, which effectively develop through physical interaction.

“Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party.”

The influential American essayist Emerson unravels the mysteries behind the divine affinity that binds a friendship while laying down the rules and requirements needed to preserve the fellowship. To Emerson, friendship should allow a certain balance between agreement and disagreement. You might also be interested in these articles about best friends .

“Being friendly in business is necessary but friendships in business aren’t. That’s an important concept. We can have a valuable business relationship without friendship. Unfortunately, many mistakenly believe that the first step to building a business relationship is to develop a friendship.”

This essay differentiates friends from business partners. Using an anecdote, the essay warns against investing too much emotion and time in building friendships with business partners or customers, as such an approach may be futile in increasing sales.

“As racial tensions mounted around them, Drummer and Linehan developed a close connection—one that bridged their own racial differences and has endured more than four decades of evolving racial dynamics within Boston’s schools. Their friendship als­o served as a public symbol of racial solidarity at a time when their students desperately needed one.”

At a time when racial discrimination is at its highest, the author highlights a friendship they built and strengthened at the height of tensions during racial desegregation. This friendship proves that powerful interracial friendships can still be forged and separate from the politics of race.

“…15-year-old Massina Commesso worries a lot about friendship and feeling included. For much of her childhood, Massina had a neurotypical best friend… But as they entered high school, the other friend pulled away, apparently out of embarrassment over some of Massina’s behavior.”

Research debunks the myth that people with autism naturally detest interaction — evidence suggests the opposite. Now, research is shedding more light on the unique social skills of people with autism, enabling society to find ways to help them find true friendships. 

“The cost of living crisis is affecting nearly everyone, with petrol, food and electricity prices all rising. So understandably, it’s having an impact on our friendships too.”

People are now more reluctant to dine out with friends due to the rapidly rising living costs. Friendships are being tested as friends need to adjust to these new financial realities and be more creative in cultivating friendships through lower-cost get-togethers.

8 Topic Prompts on Essays About Friendships

More than giving a sense of belonging, friendships help children learn to share and resolve conflicts. First, find existing research linking the capability to make and keep friends to one’s social, intellectual, and emotional development. 

Then, write down what schools and households can do to reinforce children’s people skills. Here, you can also tackle how they can help children with learning, communication, or behavioral difficulties build friendships, given how their conditions interfere with their capabilities and interactions. 

As with plants, healthy friendships thrive on fertile soil. In this essay, list the qualities that make “fertile soil” and explain how these can grow the seeds of healthy friendships. Some examples include mutual respect and the setting of boundaries. 

Then, write down how you should water and tend to your dearest friendships to ensure that it thrives in your garden of life. You can also discuss your healthy friendships and detail how these have unlocked the best version of yourself. 

Marrying your best friend is a romance story that makes everyone fall in love. However, opening up about your feelings for your best friend is risky. For this prompt, collate stories of people who boldly made the first step in taking their friendship to a new level.

Hold interviews to gather data and ask them the biggest lesson they learned and what they can share to help others struggling with their emotions for their best friend. Also, don’t forget to cite relevant data, such as this study that shows several romantic relationships started as friendships. 

It’s challenging to sustain a long-distance friendship. But many believe that social media has narrowed that distance through an online connection. In your essay, explain the benefits social media has offered in reinforcing long-distance friendships. 

Determine if these virtual connections suffice to keep the depth of friendships. Make sure to use studies to support your argument. You can also cite studies with contrasting findings to give readers a holistic view of the situation.

It could be heartbreaking to feel that your friend is gradually becoming a foe. In this essay, help your readers through this complicated situation with their frenemies by pointing out red flags that signal the need to sever ties with a friend. Help them assess when they should try saving the friendship and when they should walk away. Add a trivial touch to your essay by briefly explaining the origins of the term “frenemies” and what events reinforced its use. 

We all know that there is inevitable competition in the workplace. Added to this are the tensions between managers and employees. So can genuine friendships thrive in a workplace? To answer this, turn to the wealth of experience and insights of long-time managers and human resource experts. 

First, describe the benefits of fostering friendships in the workplace, such as a deeper connection in working toward shared goals, as well as the impediments, such as inherent competition among colleagues. Then, dig for case studies that prove or disprove the relevance and possibility of having real friends at work.

Whether it be the destructive duo like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, or the hardworking pair of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson, focus on a literary friendship that you believe is the ultimate model of friendship goals. 

Narrate how the characters met and the progression of their interactions toward becoming a friendship. Then, describe the nature of the friendship and what factors keep it together. 

In Book VIII of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle writes about three kinds of friendships: pleasure, utility, and virtue. Dive deeper into the Greek philosopher’s mind and attempt to differentiate his three types of friendships. 

Point out ideas he articulated most accurately about friendship and parts you disagree with. For one, Aristotle refutes the concept that friendships are necessarily built on likeness alone, hence his classification of friendships. Do you share his sentiments? 

Read our Grammarly review before you submit your essay to make sure it is error-free! Tip: If writing an essay sounds like a lot of work, simplify it. Write a simple 5 paragraph essay instead.

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends Research Paper

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Friendship is the most important form of emotional attachment and interpersonal relationships. One can often hear that under the influence of the increased mobility of society, the acceleration of the pace of life, the friendly relations of modern people are becoming more superficial and extensive. Friendship is being replaced by broad ties based on common interests. Modern-day reality makes that process even more troublesome, as people have fewer opportunities to find friends in real life thanks to online social network expansion (Kelaher 2). Meanwhile, a person needs deeper emotional ties with other people. Finding a person who can give it to you and maintaining relationships requires enormous efforts.

Children are capable of forming contacts instantly, but adults are burdened with the every-day routine and are deprived of time they can devote to hobbies and friends. Therefore, joining a group based on interests or volunteering is the best way of finding people that will share one’s activities. Trying new activities also has excellent potential to bring new social ties into one’s life (Sedghi). The benefit of making friends in a group is that all the people there have at least one thing in common that can draw them together. Besides, friendship demands conscious efforts, and one should create time for communication. It should be noted here that talking nice about people and smiling produces the effect of a friendly person. As a result, people around tend to be more open and willing to befriend such an individual.

Speaking of individuals, people willing to find friends can be expected to start from themselves. Human beings are of interest when they grow and develop. The stagnation of self-development may become a reason to sever ties with the person later. Moreover, a person should know his or her goals in life, and interests to be able to share it. Besides, such people are supposed to be confident and open to new contacts.

It is generally agreed that the more time two or more people spend together, the closer they become. Studies show that people should spend approximately 100 hours with each other to become friends (Hall 1278). Therefore, shared experience is the key, and the next strategy is to spend quality time together. One should find free time on a busy day and plan engagement with other people. It is also beneficial to plan in detail where they want to go and how many friends want to make this time.

Asking questions is an excellent strategy to turn an acquaintance into a friend. To show sympathy and interest, it is advised to ask people to tell something about themselves and listen attentively: mere human support is valued much nowadays. Additionally, so far as people want to be needed, asking for favors may also cement relations, for a person will realize this way that somebody needs him or her.

Instead of searching for new people, one can consider reconnecting with old acquaintances. Such people, including former coworkers, neighbors, and college friends, are called dormant ties by scholars (Roulet and Laker 4). People frequently lose touch with these people accidentally. Maintaining a connection with old friends and finding time to share life updates with them is a good strategy not to lose ties a person already has. Therefore, making a friend is not an easy task for adults. A person should work hard to form healthy relations and what is more, not to lose it.

Works Cited

Hall, Jeffrey A. “How Many Hours Does It Take to Make a Friend?” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships vol. 36, no. 4, 2019, pp. 1278-1296. SAGE , Web.

Kelaher, Hope. Here to Make Friends: How to Make Friends as an Adult. Ulysses Press, 2020.

Roulet, Thomas, and Benjamin Laker. “Now is the Time to Reconnect with Your Dormant Network.” MIT Sloan School of Management, 2020.

Sedghi, Amy. “Loneliness Isn’t Inevitable – a Guide to Making New Friends as an Adult.” The Guardian , 2018, Web.

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IvyPanda. (2022, February 24). How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-develop-a-friendship-strategies-to-meet-new-friends/

"How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends." IvyPanda , 24 Feb. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-develop-a-friendship-strategies-to-meet-new-friends/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends'. 24 February.

IvyPanda . 2022. "How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends." February 24, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-develop-a-friendship-strategies-to-meet-new-friends/.

1. IvyPanda . "How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends." February 24, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-develop-a-friendship-strategies-to-meet-new-friends/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends." February 24, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/how-to-develop-a-friendship-strategies-to-meet-new-friends/.

Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Friendship — Making Friends And The Importance Of Friendship

Making Friends and The Importance of Friendship

• Categories: Friendship

About this sample

Words: 1035 |

Published: Feb 8, 2022

Words: 1035 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Table of contents

Friendship essay outline, friendship essay example, introduction.

• The importance of making friends in life

Types of Friends

• The value of having diverse types of friends
• The positive impacts of different types of friends on one's life

Polar Opposite Friend

• The benefits of having a friend who is a polar opposite
• Encouragement to try new things and gain new perspectives
• Creating a balance in the friendship

Builder Friend

• The role of a builder friend in providing support and guidance
• Trustworthiness and honesty in the relationship
• Pushing you to achieve your goals and dreams

Best Friend

• The unique bond and connection with a best friend
• Honesty, emotional support, and no-judgment zone
• Unconditional love and encouragement to be a better person
• The importance of surrounding oneself with supportive and caring friends
• The impact of friendships on personal growth and happiness

Works Cited:

• Baker, E. D. (1989). "Symbolism in Eudora Welty's 'A Worn Path.'" In E. D. Jones (Ed.), Masterplots II: Short Story Series (Vol. 7, pp. 3925-3927). Salem Press.
• Cowart, D. (1984). "Phoenix Has No Coat: Historicity, Eschatology, and Scapegoating in 'A Worn Path.'" Studies in Short Fiction, 21(1), 45-56.
• Duvall, J. D. (2004). "Overview of 'A Worn Path'." In Short Stories for Students (Vol. 19, pp. 1-15). Gale.
• Evans, R. C. (1973). "The Art of 'A Worn Path.'" The Southern Review, 9(1), 101-108.
• Friedmann, M. (1990). "The Inverted World of Eudora Welty's 'A Worn Path.'" College Language Association Journal, 33(3), 282-289.
• Gaudet, M. (1989). "Life and Death in Eudora Welty's 'A Worn Path.'" In E. D. Jones (Ed.), Masterplots II: Short Story Series (Vol. 7, pp. 3922-3925). Salem Press.
• Grimsley, R. (1984). "Eudora Welty's 'A Worn Path': The Eternal Quest of Welty's Phoenix Jackson." Mississippi Quarterly, 37(4), 539-550.
• Korb, R. (2017). "A Worn Path." In Masterpieces of American Short Fiction (pp. 222-228). Greenwood Press.
• Moreland, R. (2010). "Eudora Welty's 'A Worn Path' and the Slave Narrative Tradition." The Southern Literary Journal, 43(2), 15-26.
• Smith, E. A. (1984). "The Journey of Life: Symbolism in Eudora Welty's 'A Worn Path.'" The Mississippi Quarterly, 37(2), 231-239.

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Essay on Friendship for Students and Children

500+ words essay on friendship.

Friendship is one of the greatest bonds anyone can ever wish for. Lucky are those who have friends they can trust. Friendship is a devoted relationship between two individuals. They both feel immense care and love for each other. Usually, a friendship is shared by two people who have similar interests and feelings.

You meet many along the way of life but only some stay with you forever. Those are your real friends who stay by your side through thick and thin. Friendship is the most beautiful gift you can present to anyone. It is one which stays with a person forever.

True Friendship

A person is acquainted with many persons in their life. However, the closest ones become our friends. You may have a large friend circle in school or college , but you know you can only count on one or two people with whom you share true friendship.

There are essentially two types of friends, one is good friends the other are true friends or best friends. They’re the ones with whom we have a special bond of love and affection. In other words, having a true friend makes our lives easier and full of happiness.

Most importantly, true friendship stands for a relationship free of any judgments. In a true friendship, a person can be themselves completely without the fear of being judged. It makes you feel loved and accepted. This kind of freedom is what every human strives to have in their lives.

In short, true friendship is what gives us reason to stay strong in life. Having a loving family and all is okay but you also need true friendship to be completely happy. Some people don’t even have families but they have friends who’re like their family only. Thus, we see having true friends means a lot to everyone.

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Importance of Friendship

Friendship is important in life because it teaches us a great deal about life. We learn so many lessons from friendship which we won’t find anywhere else. You learn to love someone other than your family. You know how to be yourself in front of friends.

Friendship never leaves us in bad times. You learn how to understand people and trust others. Your real friends will always motivate you and cheer for you. They will take you on the right path and save you from any evil.

Similarly, friendship also teaches you a lot about loyalty. It helps us to become loyal and get loyalty in return. There is no greater feeling in the world than having a friend who is loyal to you.

Moreover, friendship makes us stronger. It tests us and helps us grow. For instance, we see how we fight with our friends yet come back together after setting aside our differences. This is what makes us strong and teaches us patience.

Therefore, there is no doubt that best friends help us in our difficulties and bad times of life. They always try to save us in our dangers as well as offer timely advice. True friends are like the best assets of our life because they share our sorrow, sooth our pain and make us feel happy.

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How to make new friends: Where to start

Turning acquaintances into friends, overcoming obstacles to making friends, for better friendships, be a better friend yourself, making good friends.

Looking to build new friendships? These tips can help you meet people, start a conversation, and cultivate healthy connections that will improve your life and well-being.

Our society tends to place an emphasis on romantic relationships. We think that just finding that right person will make us happy and fulfilled. But research shows that friends are actually even more important to our psychological welfare. Friends bring more happiness into our lives than virtually anything else.

Friendships have a huge impact on your mental health and happiness. Good friends relieve stress, provide comfort and joy, and prevent loneliness and isolation. Developing close friendships can also have a powerful impact on your physical health. Lack of social connection may pose as much of a risk as smoking, drinking too much, or leading a sedentary lifestyle. Friends are even tied to longevity. One Swedish study found that, along with physical activity, maintaining a rich network of friends can add significant years to your life.

But close friendships don’t just happen. Many of us struggle to meet people and develop quality connections. Whatever your age or circumstances, though, it’s never too late to make new friends, reconnect with old ones, and greatly improve your social life, emotional health, and overall well-being.

The benefits of friendships

While developing and maintaining friendships takes time and effort, healthy friendships can:

Improve your mood. Spending time with happy and positive friends can elevate your mood and boost your outlook.

Help you to reach your goals. Whether you’re trying to get fit, give up smoking, or otherwise improve your life, encouragement from a friend can really boost your willpower and increase your chances of success.

Reduce your stress and depression. Having an active social life can bolster your immune system and help reduce isolation, a major contributing factor to depression.

Support you through tough times. Even if it’s just having someone to share your problems with, friends can help you cope with serious illness, the loss of a job or loved one, the breakup of a relationship, or any other challenges in life.

Support you as you age. As you age, retirement , illness, and the death of loved ones can often leave you isolated. Knowing there are people you can turn to for company and support can provide purpose as you age and serve as a buffer against depression, disability, hardship and loss.

Boost your self-worth. Friendship is a two-way street, and the “give” side of the give-and-take contributes to your own sense of self-worth. Being there for your friends makes you feel needed and adds purpose to your life.

Why online friends aren’t enough

Technology has shifted the definition of friendship in recent years. With the click of a button, we can add a friend or make a new connection. But having hundreds of online friends is not the same as having a close friend you can spend time with in person.

Online friends can’t hug you when a crisis hits, visit you when you’re sick, or celebrate a happy occasion with you. Our most important and powerful connections happen when we’re face-to-face. So make it a priority to stay in touch in the real world, not just online.

A friend is someone you trust and with whom you share a deep level of understanding and communication. A good friend will:

• Show a genuine interest in what’s going on in your life, what you have to say, and how you think and feel.
• Accept you for who you are.
• Listen to you attentively without judging you, telling you how to think or feel, or trying to change the subject.
• Feel comfortable sharing things about themselves with you.

As friendship works both ways, a friend is also someone you feel comfortable supporting and accepting, and someone with whom you share a bond of trust and loyalty.

Focus on the way a friendship feels, not what it looks like

The most important quality in a friendship is the way the relationship makes you feel—not how it looks on paper, how alike you seem on the surface, or what others think. Ask yourself:

• Do I feel better after spending time with this person?
• Am I myself around this person?
• Do I feel secure, or do I feel like I have to watch what I say and do?
• Is the person supportive and am I treated with respect?
• Is this a person I can trust?

The bottom line: if the friendship feels good, it is good. But if a person tries to control you, criticizes you, abuses your generosity, or brings unwanted drama or negative influences into your life, it’s time to re-evaluate the friendship. A good friend does not require you to compromise your values, always agree with them, or disregard your own needs.

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Tips for being more friendly and social (even if you’re shy)

If you are introverted or shy , it can feel uncomfortable to put yourself out there socially. But you don’t have to be naturally outgoing or the life of the party to make new friends.

Focus on others, not yourself. The key to connecting to other people is by showing interest in them. When you’re truly interested in someone else’s thoughts, feelings, experiences, and opinions, it shows—and they’ll like you for it. You’ll make far more friends by showing your interest rather than trying to get people interested in you. If you’re not genuinely curious about the other person, then stop trying to connect.

[Read: Dealing with Loneliness and Shyness]

Pay attention. Switch off your smartphone, avoid other distractions, and make an effort to truly listen to the other person. By paying close attention to what they say, do, and how they interact, you’ll quickly get to know them. Small efforts go a long way, such as remembering someone’s preferences, the stories they’ve told you, and what’s going on in their life.

Evaluating interest

Friendship takes two, so it’s important to evaluate whether the other person is looking for new friends.

• Do they ask you questions about you, as if they’d like to get to know you better?
• Do they tell you things about themselves beyond surface small talk?
• Do they give you their full attention when you see them?
• Does the other person seem interested in exchanging contact information or making specific plans to get together?

If you can’t answer “yes” to these questions, the person may not be the best candidate for friendship now, even if they genuinely like you. There are many possible reasons why not, so don’t take it personally!

We tend to make friends with people we cross paths with regularly: people we go to school with, work with, or live close to. The more we see someone, the more likely a friendship is to develop. So, look at the places you frequent as you start your search for potential friends.

Another big factor in friendship is common interests. We tend to be drawn to people who are similar, with a shared hobby, cultural background, career path, or kids the same age. Think about activities you enjoy or the causes you care about. Where can you meet people who share the same interests?

Meeting new people

When looking to meet new people, try to open yourself up to new experiences. Not everything you try will lead to success but you can always learn from the experience and hopefully have some fun.

Volunteering can be a great way to help others while also meeting new people. Volunteering also gives you the opportunity to regularly practice and develop your social skills.

[Read: Volunteering and its Surprising Benefits]

Take a class or join a club to meet people with common interests, such as a book group, dinner club, or sports team. Websites such as Meetup.com can help you find local groups (or start your own) and connect with others who share similar interests.

Connect with your alumni association . Many colleges have alumni associations that meet regularly. You already have the college experience in common; bringing up old times makes for an easy conversation starter. Some associations also sponsor community service events or workshops where you can meet more people.

Walk a dog. Dog owners often stop and chat while their dogs sniff or play with each other. If dog ownership isn’t right for you, volunteer to walk dogs from a shelter or a local rescue group.

Attend art gallery openings, book readings, lectures, music recitals, or other community events where you can meet people with similar interests. Check with your library or local paper for events near you.

Behave like someone new to the area. Even if you’ve lived in the same place all your life, take the time to re-explore your neighborhood attractions. New arrivals to any town or city tend to visit these places first—and they’re often keen to meet new people and establish friendships, too.

Cheer on your team. Going to a bar alone can seem intimidating, but if you support a sports team, find out where other fans go to watch the games. You automatically have a shared interest—your team—which makes it natural to start up a conversation.

Take a moment to unplug . It’s difficult to meet new people in any social situation if you’re more interested in your phone than the people around you. Remove your headphones and put your smartphone away while you’re in the checkout line or waiting for a bus, for example. Making eye contact and exchanging small talk with strangers is great practice for making connections—and you never know where it may lead!

We all have acquaintances in our life—people we exchange small talk with as we go about our day or trade jokes or insights with online. While these relationships can fulfill you in their own right, with some effort, you can turn a casual acquaintance into a true friend.

The first step is to open up a little about yourself. Friendships are characterized by intimacy. True friends know about each other’s values, struggles, goals, and interests. So, try sharing something a little bit more personal than you would normally. You don’t have to reveal your most closely-held secret, just something a little more revealing than talking about the weather or something you watched on TV and see how the other person responds. Do they seem interested? Do they reciprocate by disclosing something about themselves?

Other tips for strengthening an acquaintance into a friend:

Invite a casual acquaintance out for a drink or to a movie . Lots of other people feel just as uncomfortable about reaching out and making new friends as you do. Be the one to break the ice. Take the first step and reach out to a neighbor or work colleague, for example—they will thank you later.

Carpool to work . Many companies offer carpool programs. If your employer doesn’t, simply ask a colleague if they’d like to share rides. Spending regular time together is a great way to get to know others better and offers the opportunity for uninterrupted and deeper conversation.

Track down old friends via social media . It’s easy to lose track of friends when you move or change jobs, for example. Make the effort to reconnect and then turn your “online” friends into “real-world” friends by meeting up for coffee instead of chatting on Facebook or Twitter.

Is something stopping you from building the friendships you’d like to have? Here are some common obstacles—and how you can overcome them.

If you’re too busy…

Developing and maintaining friendships takes time and effort, but even with a packed schedule, you can find ways to make the time for friends.

Put it on your calendar. Schedule time for your friends just as you would for errands. Make it automatic with a weekly or monthly standing appointment. Or simply make sure that you never leave a get-together without setting the next date.

Mix business and pleasure. Figure out a way to combine your socializing with activities that you have to do anyway.  These could include going to the gym, getting a pedicure, or shopping. Errands create an opportunity to spend time together while still being productive.

Group it. If you truly don’t have time for multiple one-on-one sessions with friends, set up a group get-together. It’s a good way to introduce your friends to each other. Of course, you’ll need to consider if everyone’s compatible first.

If you’re afraid of rejection…

Making new friends means putting yourself out there, and that can be scary. It’s especially intimidating if you’re someone who’s been betrayed, traumatized, or abused in the past, or someone with an insecure attachment bond. But by working with the right therapist , you can explore ways to build trust in existing and future friendships.

For more general insecurities or a fear of rejection, it helps to evaluate your attitude. Do you feel as if any rejection will haunt you forever or prove that you’re unlikeable or destined to be friendless? These fears get in the way of making satisfying connections and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody likes to be rejected, but there are healthy ways to handle it:

• Just because someone isn’t interested in talking or hanging out doesn’t automatically mean they’re rejecting you as a person. They may be busy, distracted, or have other things going on.
• If someone does reject you, that doesn’t mean that you’re worthless or unlovable. Maybe they’re having a bad day. Maybe they misread you or misinterpreted what you said. Or maybe they’re just not a nice person!
• You’re not going to like everyone you meet, and vice versa. Like dating, building a solid network of friends can be a numbers game. If you’re in the habit of regularly exchanging a few words with strangers you meet, rejections are less likely to hurt. There’s always the next person. Focus on the long-term goal of making quality connections, rather than getting hung up on the ones that didn’t pan out.
• Keep rejection in perspective. It never feels good, but it’s rarely as bad as you imagine. It’s unlikely that others are sitting around talking about it. Instead of beating yourself up, give yourself credit for trying and see what you can learn from the experience.

Making a new friend is just the beginning of the journey. Friendships take time to form and even more time to deepen, so you need to nurture that new connection.

Be the friend that you would like to have. Treat your friend just as you want them to treat you. Be reliable, thoughtful, trustworthy, and willing to share yourself and your time.

Be a good listener. Be prepared to listen to and support friends just as you want them to listen to and support you.

Give your friend space. Don’t be too clingy or needy. Everyone needs space to be alone or spend time with other people as well.

Don’t set too many rules and expectations. Instead, allow your friendship to evolve naturally. You’re both unique individuals so your friendship probably won’t develop exactly as you expect.

Be forgiving. No one is perfect and every friend will make mistakes. No friendship develops smoothly so when there’s a bump in the road, try to find a way to overcome the problem and move on. It will often deepen the bond between you.

More Information

• Copeland, M. E. (n.d.). Making and Keeping Friends—A Self-Help Guide (SMA-3716; p. 11). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS). Retrieved August 4, 2021, from Link
• Is well-being associated with the quantity and quality of social interactions? – PsycNET. (n.d.). Retrieved August 3, 2021, from Link
• Hall, J. A. (2019). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(4), 1278–1296. Link
• Chopik, W. J. (2017). Associations among relational values, support, health, and well-being across the adult lifespan. Personal Relationships, 24(2), 408–422. Link

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The Importance of Friendship

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life..

Posted July 26, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

• Friendship makes life more enjoyable and enriches one's everyday experiences.
• Finding friends can be challenging but can be often achieved by approaching others with mutual interests.
• The first criteria one should look for in a partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to them.

As we move through life, we find that there are many things out of our control. We can’t choose our parents, our genetics , or control the things that happen in the world around us. One thing that we can control is who our friends are, and this decision can either make our lives so much richer and beautiful, or more stressful and disappointing. Today we’ll focus on how to choose friends who enrich our lives and make them more beautiful.

Why friends are so important

Having solid friendships is important for two main reasons. First, they make life more enjoyable. We get to share the beautiful aspects of life with people who we love, which can enrich our everyday experiences. Second, our friends help us through the difficult times. Having friends to support us through hard times can make unimaginably difficult situations seem more tolerable.

The most beautiful part about pouring our time and energy into friendships is that not only do friends help enrich our lives, but we enrich theirs too! Friendships get us through the tough times in life, make things more fun and enjoyable, and all-around make our lives better. I urge you to take stock of your friendships and ask yourself if your current friends people build you up and support you, or is the friendship more one-sided?

As we explore friendships today, these are also inclusive of our partners. I believe that the foundation for any healthy relationship is friendship. So it’s important to group our romantic partners into this conversation too.

So, where do we find friends? This might sound silly, but finding friends can be challenging! When I first moved to California for my Ph.D., I didn’t have any friends out here. There were quite a few people in my program that I enjoyed spending time with. But, towards the end of school, they became very busy and were no longer able to dedicate time to hang out anymore. Thankfully, through the help of a very good therapist, I learned that it was important to enjoy life instead of striving for excellence all of the time. As a result, I learned how important it was to carve out time in my life for friends.

Unfortunately, the people I had dedicated time to thus far were achievement-oriented and were pouring their time into work and not our friendships. This forced me to seek out other ways to form connections with people. I ended up finding a local hiking group with the hopes of meeting people with similar interests. During one of these hikes, I met Jim, one of my best friends to this day.

We became instant friends. We have continued to support each other over the years, and even more importantly, we always make time for one another. We both view the friendship as one that makes each other’s lives better, therefore it’s always worth the time and energy. The backbone of any successful friendship is one where both sides put in equal effort and support.

Both Jim and I were forced to put in more effort when he moved across the country to the East Coast. Because we already had such a strong foundation, this didn’t impact our friendship. We talk all of the time and see each other several times a year. We make the relationship a priority no matter what coast each other is on. Like anything in life that is valuable to us, we must work at it and put time and effort into it.

When it's time to move on from a friendship

The second part of the friendship discussion can be a difficult one — reassessing your current friendships and potentially moving on from friends who don’t add value to your life.

Two of my best friends from high school went down different paths from me. We still keep in contact, but I don’t spend too much time with them anymore. The supporting, loving part of our relationship wasn’t there anymore, so it was no longer worth putting energy into maintaining a friendship that had changed so much.

This may be a story you can relate to. What I hope you take away from this post is this — friendships take energy, time, and commitment. And if you’re putting your time and energy into someone who isn’t enriching your life and giving you the support you need, it may be time to reevaluate that friendship.

If you find yourself in the market for friends (who isn’t?) I recommend you find groups or activities that you genuinely enjoy. This way you’ll have the opportunity to connect with people who have similar interests. And once you’re there, take a risk! Talk to people, exchange contact information, and follow up with them. It may feel scary at first, but the reward outweighs the momentary uncomfortable feeling you may have.

Friendship and dating

In many ways, the most important friendship in our lives is the one we have with our romantic partners. The first criteria we should look for in this partner is someone who is ultimately a good friend to us, meaning that they are kind, positive, loving, and supportive. If we’re dating someone and they’re a jerk, it’s probably safe to assume that they’re not a good friend. To avoid this, I recommend seeking out someone who is a good friend first, i.e. before the romance and sexual stuff gets in the way.

When there are bumps in a friendship or a romantic relationship , it’s important to work through those tough times. The tricky part is that it will take two people to fix that issue. We can only control our actions and hold ourselves accountable, but we cannot control our friend or our partner's reaction. In addition to our own actions, we have control over the friends or partners that we choose in the first place. If we prioritize choosing good people who we can trust will work through issues with us, then we can work through anything.

Friendships are a crucial part of living a fulfilling life. It’s so important that we surround ourselves with people who we have fun with, who support us, and people who make us better. You may already have beautiful friendships in your life, but if you’re still in the market for friends, it’s never too late to cultivate new relationships that will make your life even more magnificent.

Robert Puff, Ph.D. , is host and producer of the Happiness Podcast, with over 16 million downloads.

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How To Write a My Best Friend Essay

Definition: What Is a My Best Friend Essay?

Write about what you know is sage advice often given to fledgling writers. And what do many of our young students know more about than their trusty sidekick, who is a constant presence through thick and thin?

A My Best Friend Essay is precisely what it sounds like; an essay the student writes that is focused on their closest pal’s endearing attributes (and otherwise).

However, the My Best Friend Essay is more than just a chance for students to wax lyrical about their BFFs. It is an authentic opportunity for students to hone their composition skills and exercise their creative flair. 

All this while talking about one of their best mate – not bad!

STRUCTURING a My Best Friend Essay

This is an essay. It says so right there in the title! Just how complex the structure of a student’s essay is will depend on essential factors such as age and ability. However, the 5-paragraph essay structure is a perfect framework for this type of composition.

One of the most beautiful aspects of the 5-paragraph essay is that it is easily modified to differentiate between lower or higher ability students by simply adjusting the number of paragraphs. The essay will still contain the same essential elements of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, regardless of how long it is.

The 5-paragraph (or hamburger) essay is a craft in itself and much too broad a topic to go into at length. Check out our complete guide here if you want more detail on this handy essay template.

Briefly though, in essence, the 5-paragraph essay comprises three parts:

• The Introduction : The opening paragraph will orient the reader to the topic of the essay, in this case, by introducing the show’s star, the best friend .
• The Body : In the traditional 5-paragraph essay, this makes up three of the five paragraphs. In this type of essay, the student will use these paragraphs to flesh out the main reasons they value their friend, or (at a more advanced level) they will tell a story about them that illustrates why they are the student’s best friend.
• The Conclusion : In the conclusion, the student can sum up why their friend holds the hallowed title of ‘best’. Or, at a higher level, the student can use the final paragraph of their essay to look forward to the future of their relationship with their best friend. 

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My Best Friend Essay Story

While we are teaching a short essay on my best friend’, it can also be approached from another angle, i.e., as a nonfiction story.

While the clearcut essay format may be eminently suitable for younger students, you may wish to revisit this genre with older students, this time emphasising storytelling.

In this creative nonfiction approach, students can merge the essay format with storytelling elements such as character, setting, central conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. 

Constructing their best friend composition in this manner allows students to work on structuring a nonfiction text. Simultaneously, it offers them a chance to develop their creative flair.

My Best Friend in 10 Lines

Another approach particularly well-suited to younger students is the my best friend essay 10 lines format.

This helps younger students get writing by giving them a clear target to aim for, which makes planning easy.

However, you can still introduce the three elements of the 5-paragraph essay here. As students list the points they want to make in their 10 lines, they can be encouraged to group these into introduction, body, and conclusion sections. 

For example, a plan might look like this:

A ‘My Best Friend in 10 Lines’ Plan

Introduction

Line 1: My friend’s name.

Line 2: What she looks like.

Line 3: Where she is from/her family.

Line 4: What friendship means to me.

Line 5: How we met.

Line 6: The kindest thing she has ever done.

Line 7: The funniest thing she has ever done.

Line 8: My absolute favorite thing about her.

Line 9: Restate why she is my best friend.

Line 10: How I see our future together.

To complete their 10-line ode to their friend, the student simply builds proper sentences around each of these (or similar) ideas.

More on Planning a My Best Friend Composition

As we can see in the sample plan above, the planning process is relatively straightforward when the 5-paragraph essay structure serves as a framework. However, we may want to take things up a notch for students of a higher ability.

A good, old-fashioned brainstorming session is an excellent starting point for the student. They can list their favorite memories and their friend’s best features.

While younger students may inevitably write something of a hagiography (a biography of a saint!), older students may want to present a more realistic portrait of their ever-present amigo.

Likewise, if the student is undertaking their composition in a narrative nonfiction form, they’ll need to map out the narrative arc of their story at the planning stage.

As with any story, the conflict will serve as the engine of the narrative. However, this conflict does not have to take the form of a problem between the writer and the best friend. After all, this text is more likely to be something of a love letter than a letter of complaint. Instead, the conflict is more likely to take the form of a problem or a challenge faced by the writer and their pal together.

Whether or not the student’s text will take a full-blown story form, true-to-life anecdotes will bring life to the student’s writing. The planning process is the perfect time to dump these onto paper, even if they don’t all make it into the final draft.

How to Start a MY Best Friend Essay

As with most text types, fiction or nonfiction, the writer will want to grab the reader’s attention from the outset. An effective way of doing this is by using a hook.

How to Hook The Reader

The student writer has many methods available to grasp the reader’s attention. While some of these will only be suitable for more advanced students, most can be adapted with a bit of effort for our younger writers.

• Start in the Middle of the Action

Technically known as, In Medias Res , this technique involves opening the story in the middle of a moment of dramatic tension with the exposition filled in later. This type of wizardry is probably best reserved for the more skilled student writer.

• Make a Bold Promise at the Outset

The promise of a big payoff can undoubtedly catch a reader’s eye and draw them in, but the student-writer must follow through later in the text. For less experienced students, you may want to offer a writing prompt to help out here. For example, 

My best friend Jack is truly one of a kind, but just how special he is wasn’t clear to me until the day a fire broke out in our school.

Students can quickly adapt such prompts by changing the event mentioned to their own circumstances.

• Create a Sense of Intimacy

Another way to grasp the reader’s interest is to create a sense of intimacy right from the start. This can be achieved by addressing the reader directly in a conversational tone. Students should use informal language and approach writing their text as if they were speaking to a close friend – this is perfect for this writing style.

• Open with an Anecdote

Another way to create interest (and a sense of intimacy) is to open up with an interesting anecdote about the friend. Students can select an interesting or humorous story to use as a carrot to entice the reader in. The student could substitute an exciting or amusing fact in shorter pieces for a full-blown anecdote.

• Begin with a Quotation

Quotes are a great way to garner attention. There are many online repositories of inspirational quotes on every topic under the sun where students can find a golden nugget of friendship-based wisdom to open their masterpieces. They must simply type in keywords such as ‘famous’, ‘quotes’, and ‘friendship’ to uncover a smorgasbord of well-articulated wisdom for students to choose from. However, students should ensure the sentiment expressed in their selected quote ties into the type of friendship described in their work.

Working the Body

As we stated earlier in this article, the 5-paragraph essay structure, or the narrative writing arc, lays out a suitable template for the student-writer to work their way through the body of their text. However, it’s worth pointing out five areas where a little attention can significantly impact.

• Get Specific

The devil’s in the details. The more specific the student is in their writing, the more effectively they will communicate with the reader.

Encourage students to be as precise as possible in their descriptions. A thesaurus is an excellent tool to help students find just the right word for the job.

• Vary Sentence Length

Often, emergent writers rely on the same couple of simple sentence structures in their writing. This soon makes the writing monotonous for the reader; if they continue to read, it is only with effort that they will finish the student’s work.

Variety is not only the spice of life but also the spice of good writing. Encourage students to vary their sentence structures and alternate between long and short sentences to diversify the rhythm of their writing and evoke interest on the reader’s part.

• Use Dialogue

Weaving dialogue into a my best friend essay text is a great way to bring colour and variety to a student’s writing. It also allows the student to practice punctuating dialogue – an essential skill!

Students will need to learn to listen carefully if they are to be able to write how people actually speak. Encouraging them to read their dialogue aloud is an effective way to check if it rings true.

• Incorporate Literary Devices

Though this is undoubtedly a nonfiction text, it has firm roots in creative writing too. Students should incorporate some of the literary techniques and devices that we’d more commonly associate with poetry and fiction writing to add colour, creativity, and imagination to their writing.

For example, for younger students, physical descriptions of their BFF provide the perfect opportunity to introduce similes and hyperbole. Don’t be afraid to get comical here; writing should be fun, after all. 

Does their friend have a big nose? How big? As big as an elephant’s trunk, perhaps?

Just make sure students avoid being too mean or poking fun at areas too sensitive for their friends.

It is easy to differentiate different abilities by challenging stronger students to use more complex literary devices in their work. Zoomorphism anyone?

• Evoke the Five Senses

Emergent writers often display a bias towards only using the sense of sight in their descriptions. To bring their writing up a notch, encourage your students to employ all five senses in their writing.

By evoking the sense of hearing, smell, taste, and touch in their work, students will help their writing to come alive in the reader’s imagination.

WRAPPING THINGS Up

In a regular 5-paragraph essay, the concluding paragraph is usually the time to summarize the main arguments and drive home the thesis statement one more time. Obviously, things are a little bit different in a “my best friend essay.”

Of course, students can take the opportunity to revisit and restate the main reasons why their best friend holds the best-friend-championship belt. Still, there is a more artistic way to use their composition’s final paragraph.

Ask students to think about their friendship and where they see it in five, ten, twenty, or even forty years.

Undoubtedly, for younger students, in particular, this may be a bit of a challenge, but it can be a fun thought experiment too. Students can pose themselves questions to help, such as:

• Will we be neighbours?
• Will we work together?
• Will our children go to school together? Etc.

Taking a tentative step into the possibilities of the future can make for an impactful ending.

MY BEST FRIEND ESSAY EXAMPLE

So that should get you well on your way to creating an excellent my best friend essay that will not only get you some great grades but also score you some brownie points.

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Quick Write and JOURNAL Activities for ALL TEXT TYPES in DIGITAL & PDF PRINT to engage RELUCTANT WRITERS .

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The Hard Work of Making New Friends

Illustration via Getty Images.

By Toby Lowenfels

I spent my 30s in Los Angeles, working in the entertainment industry, but the second I started having kids, I felt the urge to be with family. More specifically, I wanted my mom – and that meant moving back to my hometown of Nashville. It’s been a year now, and though my family is somewhat settled, I’m still finding my footing with friends: how to meet new ones, and how to reconnect with the ones I had as a kid. What I hadn’t realized was how daunting this would all be. 

The pandemic built distance between us all, in a very literal sense. For the most part, my close friends remain, but casual friendships were cut loose. We simply lost touch. Now it feels harder than ever to make connections without putting in effort that feels…embarrassing. Women, especially parents, need friends more than ever, but how do you make new friends, or sustain the friendships you have, in your 40s? 

After living away from my hometown for 20 years, I found I had a lot to catch up on. And thanks to the pandemic, my social skills were not in check. One morning, I met up with a woman who was introduced to me by a mutual friend. I’d just had a cup of coffee and an argument with my husband; she got an earful and I never heard from her again. I texted to apologize for oversharing and she left me on read. Strike out. 

Since then, I’ve learned that making new friends takes moxie and that you cannot worry about what others will think. If I like a woman, I go for it. Life is too short, you know? Recently, I clicked with another mom on the playground, then somewhat aggressively invited myself to her Oscars party. I showed up and was immediately dropped into a close-knit group of warm, intelligent women who’d been friends for decades. It was such a relief to be with women, sharing with women. You crave this kind of female connection when you’re a new mom, and I’m finding myself looking for it again as I approach middle age. But that kind of friendship is hard earned over many years. I left with a longing. 

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Because the truth is, most people don’t want to make new friends. It takes a lot of effort. Actually, it’s exhausting. Those who never left town are settled in their routines and already have their friends. And while it’s hard to break into those sorts of tight-knit groups, I have found luck connecting with other women like me who’ve recently relocated. I joined a book club. I go for walks with my neighbor. I meet up for coffee with women I click with over Instagram and try not to blurt out all my problems right away. And I’m thrilled to have found a hairdresser I consider a friend (that’s a guaranteed catchup at least every five weeks, plus we actually hang out outside the salon now). 

As I try to forge new friendships, I’m realizing that old friends truly are the best and it’s worth every ounce of effort to hold on to them, no matter where they live. When I turned 40 this spring, I felt pressure to make a big deal out of it. Every time I opened my social feeds, I saw girls' trips. But my friends are scattered all over the country and I had decision fatigue when it came to gathering everyone. Instead, I invited my best friend from college to visit and we spent the weekend laughing and talking and crying. (I’m really fun, I swear!) We’d gone months without texting or picking up the phone to chat. Turns out, we’d both let a lot fall through the cracks when it came to staying in touch. We promised to do better.

Maybe because of this, my most consistent friendship takes place over group chat. Three of us met in a baby group when we were living in LA, with little-to-nothing in common except that we were new moms and didn’t know what we were doing. Now we all live in separate cities and text each other all day long. Sometimes, I’ll go to bed early and wake up to 50 texts between the other two women. The constant contact allows us to maintain our intimacy. 

Women are often taught about how important romantic relationships are in their lives (we grew up on Disney movies, after all) but as you get older you start to realize the importance of friends. Friendship is its own sort of romance. Paradoxically, this realization often happens when it's harder than ever to make or keep friends because we’re often spread out (particularly true of our generation, one of the most mobile ) and busy with our own responsibilities. But maintaining and growing friendships is vital and being isolated is a drag. We know that now more than ever.

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Essay on Meeting New Friends

Students are often asked to write an essay on Meeting New Friends in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Meeting New Friends

Why meet new friends.

Meeting new friends is a fun and exciting part of life. It helps us learn about different cultures, traditions, and ways of life. We get to share our own experiences and learn from others. This makes us more understanding and open-minded.

Where to Meet New Friends?

There are many places to meet new friends. These include school, sports clubs, art classes, and even online platforms. The key is to be open and friendly. Always remember to respect others and their differences.

How to Make Friends?

Making friends is easy. Just be yourself and show kindness to others. Listen when they talk and show interest in their stories. Sharing common interests can also help in building a strong friendship.

Benefits of Having Friends

Friends bring joy and happiness to our lives. They support us in tough times and celebrate with us in happy moments. Friends also help us grow as individuals by teaching us new things and by challenging us.

Maintaining Friendships

To keep a friendship, it’s important to stay in touch. This could be through phone calls, messages or meeting up. It’s also important to show kindness and respect. Remember, a good friend is worth keeping!

250 Words Essay on Meeting New Friends

Why meeting new friends is important.

Meeting new friends is a fun and exciting part of life. It is important because it allows us to learn about different cultures, habits, and ideas. It also helps us to grow as a person. When we meet new people, we get to share our own ideas and experiences with them.

How to Meet New Friends

There are many ways to meet new friends. We can meet them in school, in our neighborhood, or even online. Joining clubs or sports teams, participating in community events, or volunteering are also good ways to meet new people. Always be open and kind when you meet someone new. Show genuine interest in them, ask questions, and listen to their stories.

The Joy of Meeting New Friends

Meeting new people can be very joyful. When we make new friends, we feel happy and loved. We have someone to share our joys and sorrows with. We can learn new things from them and have fun together. New friends can bring new energy and excitement into our lives.

Challenges in Meeting New Friends

Sometimes, meeting new friends can be challenging. We might feel shy or nervous. We might worry about what they will think of us. But remember, everyone feels this way at times. It’s okay to feel nervous. Just be yourself, and remember that everyone is unique and special in their own way.

In conclusion, meeting new friends is an important and joyful part of life. It can be challenging at times, but the rewards are worth it. So be brave, be open, and enjoy the wonderful experience of meeting new friends.

500 Words Essay on Meeting New Friends

Making new friends is like opening a new book; you never know what story you are about to read. It can be an exciting and joyful experience. Having new friends can bring fresh ideas, different views, and many fun times.

The First Step

The first step in making new friends is to be open to new people. This means being ready to meet different kinds of people. You can find new friends in many places, like school, clubs, or even online. It’s important to be friendly and kind. A simple smile or a friendly hello can start a conversation that may lead to a new friendship.

Getting to Know Each Other

Once you meet someone new and start talking, the next step is getting to know each other. This can take some time. You can talk about your likes, dislikes, hobbies, and more. Sharing these things can help you find common interests. Common interests can create a strong bond between friends.

Building Trust

Trust is a very important part of friendship. It takes time to build trust with a new friend. You can build trust by being honest and keeping promises. If your new friend knows they can trust you, they will feel safe sharing their thoughts and feelings with you.

Respecting Differences

Every person is unique. Your new friend may have different opinions or habits. It’s important to respect these differences. Understanding and accepting these differences can make your friendship stronger. Remember, it’s okay to disagree sometimes. It’s how we learn and grow.

The Value of New Friends

New friends can bring many good things into our lives. They can help us see things from a different point of view. They can introduce us to new hobbies or ideas. They can also provide support when we need it. Having a variety of friends can make our lives more exciting and fulfilling.

In conclusion, meeting new friends is a wonderful experience. It might seem a bit scary at first, but it’s worth it. New friends can bring joy, knowledge, and support into our lives. So, be open, be kind, and be ready to meet your next friend.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Meeting Dad For The First Time
• Essay on Meeting A Stranger
• Essay on Meeting A Husband

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

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How to Make New Friends at School

Last Updated: March 9, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by Ashley Pritchard, MA and by wikiHow staff writer, Amy Bobinger . Ashley Pritchard is an Academic and School Counselor at Delaware Valley Regional High School in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Ashley has over 3 years of high school, college, and career counseling experience. She has an MA in School Counseling with a specialization in Mental Health from Caldwell University and is certified as an Independent Education Consultant through the University of California, Irvine. There are 18 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 652,473 times.

If you’re new to a school or you have a tendency to be shy and introverted or tend to not get out of your comfort zone, making new friends at school might seem like a challenge. Luckily, you can overcome that challenge by looking for people with the same interests as you and by being friendly when you meet new people. Also, participate in extracurricular clubs and events whenever you get the chance, since that will help you meet people outside of class!

Identifying Potential Friends

• If you love to draw, for instance, you could register for an art class, attend art shows, or look for people who are doodling during math class.
• If you’re a passionate reader, join a book club, go to public readings, or strike up a conversation with someone who carries novels around with their textbooks.
• Ask your favorite teachers if they can recommend any academic clubs for you to join! These can include debate teams, clubs for entrepreneurs, or a math quiz team.

• When you’re around someone, you should feel comfortable acting like yourself around them. A friend should never make you feel bad for being who you are.
• You may be interested in befriending some of the most popular people in school, but if they are disrespectful to you or to others, they probably won’t be a true friend.
• You should feel like the other person supports and respects you.

• For instance, you could have your friends start meeting once a week at a local pizza place after school. Each week, encourage your friends to invite as many of their mutual friends as they want. By making it a regular occurrence, you can build new friendships gradually.
• You could also attend group events like flag football games or even study groups to meet new people.

Social Tip: Remember, there’s room for your friends to like other people and still like you! Don’t get jealous if you’re not the center of attention when there are other people around. Instead, take the opportunity to strike up a conversation with someone you’ve never talked to before.

• It might sound crazy, but if you’re trying to make new friends, give this a try the next time you see groups of people chatting in the hall, at a party, or at a social event.

• You don’t have to be great at sports to play intramurals. Intramurals could be anything from soccer and flag football to frisbee, golf, and dodgeball. Mostly, they’re designed to be a great way to have a good time, get some exercise, and gain a whole new team of friends.

• Afterschool social events might include school dances, movie nights, mixers, and plays.
• If you attend sporting events, not only will you build a bond with the other students cheering on the team, but the athletes may appreciate the fact that you came out to support them, especially if it’s a team that doesn’t draw a huge crowd.
• It can sometimes help to invite someone else to go with you to an event like this, since sitting by yourself can be lonely. Just pick someone you’d like to get to know better and say something like, “Hey, Stephen, I was thinking of the baseball game tonight, do you want to go with me?” Even if they can’t go to that particular event, they’ll remember that you asked them, and they’ll be more likely to consider you as a friend.

• Talking to other people during the day doesn’t have to involve long conversations with someone you don’t know well. It could be as simple as saying something like, “How are you today?” when you’re standing near someone at your locker, or “Hey, I liked your presentation!” after someone does a good job giving a speech in class.
• If you feel stuck in a routine that keeps you from interacting with people, try changing things up. For instance, you could try taking a new hall to get to class, which will give you a chance to interact with people you might not see otherwise.

• If you are wearing headphones when you are walking around, it can give off the impression that you don’t want to talk to anyone. Leave them out if you want to focus on making new friends.
• Don’t spend so much time following celebs on Insta that you forget to participate in your own life!

Striking up a Friendship

• If there is music playing, for instance, try saying something like, “I love this song, don’t you? I’m Jessica!”
• At lunch, choose something off your lunch plate that is tasty and mention to someone at your table how great of a job the cafeteria did today.

Tip: You’ll make a better impression if you keep your comments positive.

• This comes in handy in situations like sitting with a new group at lunch or being surrounded by others at a sporting event.
• Consider asking a question of the entire group rather than just one person. For instance, if the group is talking about an upcoming dance, you could say something like, “I think they should hire a DJ for the next dance. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

• If you see someone who is wearing a T-shirt featuring your favorite band, you could say something like, “Hey, awesome shirt! I saw them in concert last summer!”

• For instance, if you started off by talking about a song that’s playing, you might say something like, “What other bands do you like, to listen to?”
• You could also say something like, “I haven’t gone to school here very long. What are the best clubs to join?”

• Text the person when you want to invite them to do something, or to check in with them to see how they did on their test or if they won a game. However, avoid texting more than once every few days, especially when you’re just getting to know the person.
• Call them when you want to reach out on a more personal level. Texting is more casual, but a phone call is nice for a special occasion like the person’s birthday, or if you want to check on the person because they have missed several days of school. [13] X Trustworthy Source Pew Research Center Nonpartisan thinktank conducting research and providing information on public opinion, demographic trends, and social trends Go to source

• For instance, if you are both into the arts, maybe there is a gallery, museum, play, or band you could go see.
• Invite your new friend to a movie you both want to see. If there is something you really want to see, ask if they would like to go with you. If you have time, plan to spend time together after the movie so you have a chance to talk about it. Coffee shops are a great place to sit and chat about the movie and anything else it made you think of.

Being Friendly

• You only have to smile for a second or 2 when you meet someone’s eyes. Smiling at them for too long without saying anything might seem a little odd.

• Other ways to have open body language include keeping your head up and making eye contact with people when you’re talking to them.
• You may also want to consider wearing brighter colored clothing. Not only will it make you seem more approachable, but it could actually affect your mood and make you happier. [16] X Research source

• Always treat other people the way you want them to treat you. Practicing the golden rule is key to cultivating a compassionate, long-lasting friendship.
• Encourage the other person. Let them know that you believe in them and support their achievements in their school work and their life goals. [18] X Research source

• For instance, if you text someone and they only text back a one-word answer, they might be busy or in a bad mood. Try to talk to them again in a few days and see if they’re more receptive to chatting.

• Chances are, the other person will really appreciate that you took the time to talk to them.

Understanding What’s Stopping You

• For instance, even if you have a big test coming up, pick a day of the week to set your books aside and play video games with a friend. Then, study all of the other days. Not only will this build your friendship, but taking time to relax might even help you on your test!

• Consider that the other person may be having a hard time right now and is not open to being friendly at the moment. [20] X Trustworthy Source HelpGuide Nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free, evidence-based mental health and wellness resources. Go to source
• Understand that the rejection may have more to do with who the other person is than it has to do with you. [21] X Trustworthy Source HelpGuide Nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free, evidence-based mental health and wellness resources. Go to source

• Other people are usually just as concerned about themselves as you are. They probably aren’t thinking about you and judging you as much as you think, because they are preoccupied with themselves. [23] X Trustworthy Source HelpGuide Nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free, evidence-based mental health and wellness resources. Go to source
• Don’t focus on perfection. You don’t have to be perfect to be a good friend. [24] X Research source
• Focus on your personal achievements instead of comparing yourself to others. [25] X Research source

Expert Q&A

Reader Videos

• Never go all-out with a possible friend. This may scare them away, and might make them less open to being your friend. Thanks Helpful 35 Not Helpful 6
• Don’t worry if a friendship doesn’t happen all at once. It takes time to strengthen a good friendship. Thanks Helpful 31 Not Helpful 6
• Never lie to someone else, as it will destroy your friendship. Thanks Helpful 33 Not Helpful 8

• Do not spread gossip about other people behind their back. Thanks Helpful 102 Not Helpful 6

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Ashley Pritchard, MA. School Counselor. Expert Interview. 4 November 2019.
• ↑ https://www.fastcompany.com/3061094/six-habits-of-people-who-make-friends-easily
• ↑ http://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships/how-to-make-friends.htm
• ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/fashion/the-etiquette-for-having-your-friends-befriend-each-other.html
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/let-their-words-do-the-talking/201305/look-peoples-feet-make-friends
• ↑ https://www.healthyplace.com/relationships/healthy-relationships/how-to-open-up-and-reveal-yourself-to-others
• ↑ http://mediashift.org/2007/10/how-cell-phones-are-killing-face-to-face-interactions295/
• ↑ http://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships/overcoming-loneliness-and-shyness.htm
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200403/the-art-the-compliment
• ↑ https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/social-briefing-8-better-conversations-asking-open-ended-questions/
• ↑ http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/09/19/americans-and-text-messaging/
• ↑ http://inspiyr.com/9-benefits-of-smiling/
• ↑ http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/14466/1/How-to-Look-Approachable.html
• ↑ http://www.collegefashion.net/fashion-tips/colors-and-mood-how-the-colors-you-wear-affect-you/
• ↑ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/201002/what-makes-true-friend
• ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-dansky/are-you-making-time-for-y_b_5939624.html
• ↑ http://www.simplypsychology.org/self-esteem.html
• ↑ https://www.positivityblog.com/improve-self-esteem

About This Article

It can be really hard to make new friends at school, but you’ll have a better chance if you can find other people who like the same things you do. For instance, you could join a club or a group based on your favorite hobby. Also, pay attention to people who spend their free time doing the same things you love to do. If you love to draw, for instance, and you see someone else drawing on their lunch break, you could sit next to them and strike up a conversation about the type of colored pencils they’re using. Keep reading for tips on how to use open-ended questions to keep a conversation going! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Make New Friends Essay

In a world that is shrinking because of the use of technology, people often find it difficult to meet new friends. While networks like Facebook and Myspace are a good way to stay in touch, getting to know someone over the Internet falls short of actually making friends with that person.

People are so caught up in the daily activities and technological advances that identifying the best means to become acquainted with others can be more challenging than anticipated. The Internet is a good place to start pinpointing events that are likely to involve people of similar interests and ideology, but to really get to know someone it is necessary to leave your house and have more personal contact.

Finding peers who think in a similar way and enjoy the same hobbies is the easiest method of beginning a friendship. Attending school events, like plays, band concerts, or sports events, is a reliable technique to find people who enjoy the same pastimes. Joining clubs is another great way to find people who enjoy the same activities.

For those who are shy and bookish, either looking for or starting a book club can provide a tamer atmosphere for classmates with more reserved natures to comfortably discuss their interests. Taking electives that…

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How to Start a College Essay: 5 Effective Techniques

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Impressionable Openers

Descriptions and demonstrations, show vulnerability, be authentic, stay personal, fun & quirky, common mistakes to avoid in your college essay.

• Ways to Overcome Writer's Block

Frequently Asked Questions About Starting a College Essay

College essays are a huge part of your college career. If not huge, one of the biggest, and for someone who has been there and done that, I know the amount of pressure the beginning of a college essay, as well as the entire essay, can put on your shoulders.

Not only are you trying to juggle things like word count and grammar errors, but you're also trying to create the perfect college essay introduction that will attract admissions officers to your application or professors to your writing skills. And that, itself, can feel impossible, fill you with dread and self-doubt, but just breathe. I am here to help all present and future students know how to start a college essay.

Today is all about starting a college essay. I have come up with five easy and effective techniques that will help you create essays so good you're going to leave your readers wanting more , starting with your opening sentence! So, this is for all college students and college applicants. Stress no more! This guide was created to help you write a successful college essay. Let's get into it.

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The beginning of your essay should, first and foremost, always have a strong opening sentence . This sentence sets the tone for not only your readers but for the entire essay. Having a wobbly, almost interesting opener can steer an admissions officer and/or professor away, so you want it to be strong. And it doesn't have to be complicated! Less is more in this situation. Here are a couple of ways you can accomplish this.

• Look within and be relatable
• Use your real life for inspiration
• Think about ways to evoke emotion

Here are some examples of impressionable openers:

• Example 1: When I was 11 years old, my mother told me she had cancer over breakfast.
• Example 2: Maybe yellow isn't my favorite color.
• Example 3: I sat next to this girl in class who made me feel stupid.

DISCLAIMER : your opener should ALWAYS adhere to the essay prompts. These are just a few examples that can capture your reader's attention almost immediately.

In order to keep readers interested, visuals are key . Image-based descriptions will not only add value to your writing, it will give your readers front seats to your essay's journey. These descriptions let actions speak for themselves.

Here is an example of a description and demonstration in an essay:

• Example 1: "I was sitting on a bar stool when the word 'cancer' hit me like the smell of her coffee brewing on the stove. The Rice Krispies were popping in my cereal bowl, and MTV Jams was playing in the background, yet all I could hear was the sound of doom all around me. The lips of my mother were moving, but I was frozen, crumbling on this stool like my mother's health. She was sick, and I didn't know how sick or what that even meant, and that terrified me."

Why This Works:

Here you can clearly feel the writers emotional state: shocked, still, scared. Not only is this moment at breakfast traumatic, you feel frozen in time with the writer. Using descriptions like this will evoke so much emotion and leave your reader wanting more.

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Something one of my teachers told me in high school was any good essay will have personal elements in it, no matter the topic. That always stuck with me and became the way I approached my college essays. Showing vulnerability in your writing will always guarantee interest. It also evokes emotion.

You can show vulnerability by:

• Being honest
• Explaining what's going on inside underneath the exterior
• Describe what's going on around you at the moment
• Letting go of the fear of being seen
• Connecting with the topic
• Being transparent about mistakes/flaws

Examples of showing vulnerability:

• Example 1 : My mother telling me she had cancer over breakfast was not on my bingo card this year.
• Example 2 : I never thought losing someone I love would change me.
• Example 3: I had to lose everything in order to gain everything.

I know being vulnerable can be tough for some , but showing this side of you to college admissions officers and/or professors will not only make you stand out, but it can also help free you of things that might be weighing on your mind. Not to sound corny, but it can be therapeutic and make you a better writer . Just make sure you are staying on track with the essay prompt, and you're set!

Whether it's believed or not, an admissions officer wants to see pieces of you in your personal statement, so starting your essay by showing authenticity is a major major key. Along with being vulnerable, there are a few ways you can achieve this.

• Reflect : Take the time to reflect on your experiences, values, and beliefs that have shaped who you are today. Let your values, passions, and interests shine through in your writing.
• Mind Your Voice : Write in your own voice and avoid trying to sound like someone you're not. Authenticity comes from being genuine and true to yourself.
• Tell Your Story : Share personal anecdotes and insights that show your unique perspective.
• Be True to You : Focus on what matters to YOU (as long as you're on topic!). Write about what is meaningful and important to you rather than what you think admissions officers want to hear.

Above all, be open . Showing introspection and self-awareness in your essay will show any admissions committee who you are beneath the surface, as well as your personal growth.

You can also begin your essay being as random and silly as you'd like . It goes hand-in-hand with other important factors like vulnerability and authenticity. But don't get too crazy . Beginning your essay with something strange will definitely draw readers in. Let me show you what I mean.

• Example 1 : I start my mornings off in silence and solitude to keep people away from me.
• Example 2 : Sometimes, I like to circle big words in complex articles to learn new words. Yeah, but to also keep one in my back pocket for later use.
• Example 3 : Being the youngest child means getting away with everything you want, and that's exactly how I like it.

Do you see how each sentence draws you in? Not only are they light-hearted, but they also make you want to know why you want to keep people away in the morning and what kind of weapon you're forming against others with new words. And every youngest sibling will attest to feeling that exact same way. All of these examples are sure to make your essay fun, show who you are, and leave readers wanting more.

Years of writing college essays have taken me through every high and low of the process possible. And when they're good, they're great! But for some reason, my mistakes stick out more than anything. So, I've compiled a list of common mistakes to avoid when writing your college essay .

• Avoid Being Cliche - While you want to be captivating, you want to avoid overly used syntax and phrases that could potentially lose your reader's curiosity. For example, "in today's day and age," "follow my heart," "don't judge a book by its cover," etc. are all cliches that can be avoided by thinking outside of the box.
• Using Vocabulary to be Impressive - I know you want to impress the admissions committees, but it's important to stick to what you know and not what you can allude to. That is, use verbiage that resonates with your personality. Using extravagant words can work against you, and they can also sound forced. College admissions officers want to see the real you, so show it to them.
• Steer Clear of Controversy - Though it's not said enough, your college essay should tell your personal story and not touch on things that can stir the pot. For instance, talking about politics and religious beliefs may not be the route you want to take UNLESS it's called for in the college essay topic. And if so, stay on track with the essay prompts.
• Procrastinating : Waiting until the last minute to start writing your essay will bite you in the butt. You will feel rushed and end up writing a poorly crafted piece. Give yourself enough time to complete an essay draft, edit the draft, and repeat this two-step cycle until your essay is complete.
• Lack of originality : This goes hand-in-hand with avoiding cliches. Your college essay should exude a lot of your personality, so show admissions officers and teachers who you are! Include your cultural background, test scores that you're proud of, any future aspirations, etc. This all depends on the essay prompts, of course, but in my experience, every essay topic has room to show who you are.
• Ignoring the prompt : This is a major key. STAY ON TRACK. Make sure to carefully read and understand the essay prompt, and write your essay accordingly. The last thing you want to do is write a college essay that has nothing to do with the prompt. Reading is essential here.
• Lack of focus : If you want to know how to start a college essay, that means knowing how to stay focused. Find a quiet space, turn off electronics, hide your phone, and really nestle into how you want to capture your reader's attention. This will help you use your five senses clearly, keep your writing strong and not write an overly wordy essay. Focus is the tool here.
• Poor organization : Make sure your essay has a strong structure with clear transitions between paragraphs. An outline will work best to accomplish this. If you go into starting your college essay without a plan, be prepared to hit all roadblocks.
• Neglecting to Revise and Edit : Like procrastinating, don't fail to revise and edit your work. Always, always, always proofread your essay for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors , as well as clarity and coherence.
• Not Seeking Feedback : Listen, I know that completing an essay is an accomplishment in itself, and you immediately want to submit it, but it's so beneficial to have others read your essay for feedback. You can only spot so many holes in your work when your eyes are constantly reviewing it, so a second, third, or even fourth set of eyes can help point out areas for improvement.

Above all, trust the writing process. Though I do want you to be aware of your jargon, don't get too wrapped up in thinking you're making a mistake. That's what editing is for! Once you complete your college essay, you should always revise and edit accordingly . What you thought sounded good might make you edit it to sound great. Just keep in mind that many colleges are looking for honesty and authenticity vs how well you can sound on paper . So, if you're aware of these factors, you'll be good to go.

Ways to Overcome Writer's Block

Take it from someone who has suffered from chronic writer's block, it's a pain to get through . Imagine being on a writing streak so good that when you stop, the entire essay writing process stops as a whole. It's definitely a challenge, but after 10 years of writing essays and really honing my craft, I learned a few things that have helped me get through even the thickest of writer's blocks, and I want to share them with you. Check them out:

• Take a break : This works every single time. Take a short break and step away from your computer to clear your mind and come back with a fresh perspective. For me, 15 minutes is all I ever need. If you need more time, that's okay. Just try not to make your break a rest.
• Freewriting : Sometimes, I'd start writing without worrying about my structure or grammar to get the ideas flowing, and surprisingly enough, I found my essay taking a pleasant turn.
• Change your environment : Move around. Don't underestimate the effects of a different location or workspace to stimulate creativity. Try coffee shops, bookstores, a park, or a new room in your house. New environment, new energy.
• Set small goals : This one is actually the most important. Some people get overwhelmed with the word "essay" for things like lack of proper writing skills, pressure to write a great essay, etc. But if you try breaking down your writing task into smaller, manageable chunks to make it less overwhelming, it can help. For example, set a goal of three paragraphs one day, take a day to edit those paragraphs, two more the next day, and so forth. Find a formula that works for you.
• Brainstorming : Write down all your ideas--everything. No matter how small you think the idea is, write it down. Even if these ideas seem unrelated, they will help you generate new thoughts and connections.
• Read or listen to music : It took me a while to realize this helps, but engaging in other forms of art can inspire new ideas and break through mental blocks. And new creativity can lead you to impress admissions officers.
• Talk it out : As a writer, it's hard to let people in on the creative process, but discussing my ideas with a friend, family member, or colleague helped me gain new perspectives and insights.
• Relax and Meditate : Hear me out: it works! Practice deep breathing and/or meditation to reduce stress and anxiety that may be contributing to writer's block.

I won't sugarcoat it: the college application process can be intimidating , but it doesn't have to throw you off your game. When it comes to college essays, I see them as opportunities to be fun and expressive. Trust me when I say if you have fun with it, you'll attract the reader's attention , paint vivid details, and write an essay that will leave the admissions officer wanting you at their school. So, take it one step at a time and watch your personal statement come to life.

How can I make my college essay stand out to admissions officers?

Simply put, be yourself. As long as you stay on track with the essay's topic, showing pieces of yourself will allow admissions officers to know more about who you are. Essays are meant to show readers who you are, how you feel, and what you think naturally, not robotically, so be authentic in your writing, and you'll be sure to stand out amongst the rest.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when writing a college essay?

Some common mistakes to avoid in your essay are using cliches and boring wording. You also want to avoid procrastinating, wasting time, not focusing, not editing, etc. When writing your essay, you want to make sure you give your writing the time and attention it deserves, so make sure you're aware of what is pulling you away from your writing. This will help you stay focused. If you have any other doubts, refer to the section about mistakes in this article and let it guide you to success.

How important is the college essay in the admissions process?

Your college essay is key in the admissions process . It's an admissions committee's first impression of you as a writer and potential student, so it should be taken very seriously. Trying to cut corners or rush through the writing process will be obvious, and it will stand out more than things like test scores, academic achievements, extracurricular activities, and any other positive influence you've had in your life. So, don't take the easy way out and really work on your essay.

Feeling confident in your college essay skills and want to explore some other essay content? Explore our blog on the comma splice to enhance your technical writing skills!

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Published May 30, 2024

An Introvert’s Declassified School Survival Guide: Making Friends at NYU

Cecily Johnson

Class of 2025

For months before I moved into my first college dorm, I worried about how hard it might be to find friends. When you’re an introvert, this challenge can seem even more daunting. All I wanted was a recent, honest resource that helped introverts who struggled with putting themselves out there.

Of course, coming to college can be hard! All of a sudden you’re away from what’s familiar and trying to navigate a life on your own. Below are some tips that I learned forming friendships in college over the last three years at NYU!

1. Identify Your Friendship Goals

This is the most important tip here. Identifying what you’re looking for in friendship is imperative to your search. Do you work better with a quieter group? Louder friends? Do you need help getting out there? Do you want people you can just chill with? Would you like a balance of the two?

Ask yourself: Do I want a friend group or a few individual, close friends? For example, during my sophomore year when I tried to keep a group of friends, it didn’t fulfill me. I couldn’t get as close to each individual in the way that I wanted. Also, I felt like I had to perform when we all hung out. It took me a year to realize that a single group that I hung out with all the time wasn’t my cup of tea. In actuality, I preferred having a few close friends.

2. Say “The Thing”

Don’t be afraid to reach out to people! If you notice someone in one of your classes, say hi! Maybe you see the same person walking to and from your classes. Take the leap and try to form a connection.

In fact, compliments are great conversation starters. Opening up a conversation with a compliment or even being honest and saying you’ve seen them around, can be a great start to a connection. To elaborate, all through my first year I saw the same girl walking down the street every day. I didn’t have any classes with her, and she looked so cool I thought we would never be friends. Well, fast-forward a year and I saw her standing outside my residence hall. I immediately went up to her, complimented her outfit, and we sat on a shuttle to class together. We found out that we were going to the same class and ended up becoming best friends.

Don’t be worried about “bothering” someone. The social scene at NYU is a lot more independent than at other universities. The student body is filled with a lot of ambitious people who always have a lot on their plate. So, it goes without saying that it’s easy to fly under the radar. On the other hand, however, this means that students are a lot more open to new friends!

3. Don’t Be A Stranger

Try sticking around after class to speak to some of your classmates. Courses are going to be one of your main points of contact for making outside friends. Even just getting someone’s number to ask future class-related questions is a great way to get to know someone.

Head to a club. Your first two years especially are the time to shop around and see what clubs you’re interested in. Even if you don’t end up being a permanent member, making yourself visible and getting to know the people around you can lead to friendships that transcend whatever club you’re in. For example, during my first year I went to the meetings of the Academic Achievement Program, a club designed to be a space for students in marginalized communities. There was one girl I saw there all the time, and I found out we lived in the same building. Now, we have known each other over two years, and I’m producing one of her short films.

Don’t discount public spaces as places to make new connections. The gym, the library, and residence hall lounges are great places to establish routine. As you spend more and more time there, you’ll start to notice what I like to call “recurring characters.” As you see the same people pop up again and again, don’t hesitate to introduce yourself.

4. Don’t Perform 24/7

Don’t compromise who you are to appeal to other people. It’s exhausting! Changing key parts of yourself to have more in common with people can work for a short time, but after a while it gets exhausting. At some point, the act needs to drop. For example, during my first semester I decided I was going to be a social butterfly. I said hi to everyone I saw, I was as outgoing and extroverted as I had the energy to be. After a few weeks, however, I was so tired that I couldn’t keep up the act. I retreated to my room to recoup some of that energy and ended up losing those connections. When I tried to reach back out, I realized that they were more interested in the version of myself I showed them and not really “me.”

When you act true to yourself right off the bat, it’s easier to identify who should and shouldn’t be your friend. If you’re pretending to be someone else, you’ll attract people more suited to that person.

In short, making friends on campus can be difficult. Some people will tell you it’s as easy as breathing, whereas others tend to get socially exhausted faster than they can meet someone new. It took me a year to find more than one person who I considered to be a friend, and another year to realize that having a large group wasn’t my cup of tea. As I’m finishing up my junior year, I’m realizing that I’ve never felt as fulfilled and satisfied with my friendships as I have these past couple of semesters. At the end of the day, the best advice I can offer is: take a deep breath .

Making friends in college isn’t a race. It can feel lonely at times, but sometimes stronger connections take a bit longer to find.

From the Philadelphia suburbs, Cecily Johnson is a junior studying Film and Television Production, Producing, and French. While on campus she is an Admissions Ambassador, the Treasurer for Tisch-affiliated club The Collective, and a Resident Assistant in a first-year residence hall. Though Cecily loves living a busy lifestyle, she’s often making efforts to slow down a bit as she enjoys taking walks, photography, weightlifting at 404, and trying new foods. In the future, she hopes to work in the media and entertainment field, ideally as a producer for television, and wants nothing more than to contribute to the creative sphere with her personal touch.

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“You Are My Friend” Early Androids and Artificial Speech

By Jessica Riskin

Centuries before audio deepfakes and text-to-speech software, inventors in the eighteenth century constructed androids with swelling lungs, flexible lips, and moving tongues to simulate human speech. Jessica Riskin explores the history of such talking heads, from their origins in musical automata to inventors’ quixotic attempts to make machines pronounce words, converse, and declare their love.

May 29, 2024

Design for parts of a speaking machine from a 1791 treatise by Wolfgang von Kempelen. The bellows act as lungs feeding air into the voice box, which is fitted with a vibrating reed whose sounds are shaped by opening and closing valves. Not pictured here is a rubber “mouth” attachment, which connects to “ o ” with a flange that bears holes resembling nostrils — Source .

The word “android”, derived from Greek roots meaning “manlike”, was the coinage of Gabriel Naudé, French physician and librarian, personal doctor to Louis XIII, and later architect of the forty-thousand-volume library of Cardinal Jules Mazarin. Naudé was a rationalist and an enemy of superstition. In 1625 he published a defense of Scholastic philosophers to whom tradition had ascribed works of magic. He included the thirteenth-century Dominican friar, theologian, and philosopher Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), who, according to legend, had built an artificial man made of bronze. 1

This story seems to have originated long after Albert’s death with Alfonso de Madrigal (also known as El Tostado), a voluminous commentator of the fifteenth century, who adapted and embellished the tales of moving statues and talking brazen heads in medieval lore. 2 El Tostado said that Albert had worked for thirty years to compose a whole man out of metal. The automaton supplied Albert with the answers to all of his most vexing questions and problems and even, in some versions of the tale, obligingly dictated a large part of Albert’s voluminous writings. The machine had met its fate, according to El Tostado, when Albert’s student, Thomas Aquinas, smashed it to bits in frustration, having grown tired of “its great babbling and chattering”. 3

Naudé did not believe in Albert’s talkative statue. He rejected it and other tales of talking automaton heads as “false, absurd and erroneous”. 4 The reason Naudé cited was the statues’ lack of equipment: being altogether without “muscles, lungs, epiglottis, and all that is necessary for a perfect articulation of the voice”, they simply did not have the necessary “parts and instruments” to speak reasonably. 5 Naudé concluded, in light of all the reports, that Albert the Great probably had built an automaton, but never one that could give him intelligible and articulate responses to questions. Instead, Albert’s machine must have been similar to the Egyptian statue of Memnon, much discussed by ancient authors, which murmured agreeably when the sun shone upon it: the heat caused the air inside the statue to “rarefy” so that it was forced out through little pipes, making a murmuring sound. 6

Despite disbelieving in Albert the Great’s talking head, Naudé gave it a powerful new name, referring to it as the “android”. 7 Thus deftly, he smuggled a new term into the language, for according to the 1695 dictionary by the French philosopher and writer Pierre Bayle, “android” had been “an absolutely unknown word, & purely an invention of Naudé, who used it boldly as though it were established.” 8 It was a propitious moment for neologisms: Naudé’s term quickly infiltrated the emerging genre of dictionaries and encyclopedias. Bayle repeated it in the article on “Albert le Grand” in his dictionary. 9 Thence, “android” secured its immortality as the headword of an article — citing Naudé and Bayle — in the first volume of the supplement to the English encyclopedist Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopaedia . 10 In denying the existence of Albert’s android, Naudé had given life to the android as a category of machine.

“The Talking Head of Albertus Magnus”, plate from J. H. Pepper’s Cyclopædic Science Simplified (1885) — Source .

But the first actual android of the new, experimental-philosphical variety for which the historical record contains rich information — “android” in Naudé’s root sense, a working human-shaped assemblage of “necessary parts” and instruments — went on display on February 3, 1738. The venue was the opening of the annual Saint-Germain fair on Paris’ Left Bank. This android differed crucially from earlier musical automata, the figures on hydraulic organs and musical clocks, in that it really performed the complex task it appeared to perform, in this case, playing a flute, rather than merely making some suggestive motions. The device was, in this sense, a novelty, but it must have looked familiar to many of the fairgoers, being modeled on a well-known statue that stood in the entrance to the Tuileries Gardens and that is now at the Louvre Museum: Antoine Coysevox’s Shepherd Playing the Flute .

Like the statue, the android represented a faun, half man and half goat. The mechanical faun, like the marble one at the Tuileries, held a flute. The second faun, though, became suddenly animate and began to play its instrument, executing twelve tunes in succession. At first, skeptical spectators were persuaded this must be a music box, with an autonomous mechanism inside to produce the sound, while the external figure merely pretended to play. But no, the android actually did play a real flute, blowing air from its lungs (three sets of bellows), and exercising flexible lips, a supple tongue, and soft, padded fingers with a skin of leather. It was even reported that one could bring one’s own flute, and the machine would oblige by playing that one too. 11

The flute-playing android was the work of an ambitious young engineer named Jacques Vaucanson. The last of ten children of a Grenoble glove maker, Vaucanson had been born in the bitterly cold winter of 1709, at the waning of Louis XIV’s long reign, in the midst of a terrible famine and the bloodiest year of a war that France was losing. Emerging from this dark moment, Vaucanson’s life and the Enlightenment would take shape in tandem, and his work would become a point of reference for the world of letters.

As a child, he had liked to build clocks and repair watches. While a school boy, he had begun designing automata. After a brief stint as a novice in Lyon, ending when a church dignitary ordered Vaucanson’s workshop destroyed, he had come to Paris at the age of nineteen to seek his fortune. Thinking he might train as a doctor, he had attended some courses in anatomy and medicine, but had soon decided to apply these studies to a new area of research: re-creating living processes in machinery. The Flutist was the result of five years’ labor. 12 When it was finished, Vaucanson submitted a memoir explaining its mechanism to the Paris Academy of Sciences. This memoir contains the first known experimental and theoretical study of the acoustics of the flute. 13

“Vaucanson”, plate from Alfred des Essarts’ The Great Ancient and Modern Inventors (1864) — Source .

Following an eight-day debut at the Saint-Germain fair, Vaucanson moved his android to the Hôtel de Longueville, a gilded hall in a grand sixteenth-century mansion at the center of the city. There it attracted about seventy-five people a day, each paying a hefty entrance fee of three livres (roughly an average week’s wages for a Parisian worker). Among its audience were the members of the Paris Academy of Sciences, who traveled as a body to the Hôtel de Longueville to witness the android Flutist. 14 Greeting his public in groups of ten or fifteen, Vaucanson explained the Flutist’s mechanism and then set it to play its concert.

The reviews were effusive. “All of Paris is going to admire . . . the most singular and agreeable mechanical phenomenon perhaps ever seen”, wrote one reviewer, emphasizing that the android “really and physically plays the flute”. 15 The music-making statue, another agreed, was “the most marvelous piece of mechanics” that had ever been. 16 The abbé Pierre Desfontaines, a journalist and popular writer, advertising Vaucanson’s show to readers of his literary journal, described the insides of the Flutist as containing “an infinity of wires and steel chains . . . [which] form the movement of the fingers, in the same way as in living man, by the dilation and contraction of the muscles. It is doubtless the knowledge of the anatomy of man . . . that guided the author in his mechanics.” 17 In the article “Androïde” in the monumental Encylopédie , a universal compilation of knowledge edited by the philosopher and writer Denis Diderot and the mathematician and philosopher Jean d’Alembert, Vaucanson’s mechanical Flutist became the paradigm of an android. The article, written by d’Alembert, defines an android as a human figure performing human functions, and virtually the whole piece is devoted to the Flutist. 18

Soon after the Academy of Science members came to the Hôtel de Longueville, Vaucanson returned the visit to read a memoir on the design and function of his Flutist. 19 The android’s mechanism was moved by weights attached to two sets of gears. The bottom set turned an axle with cranks that powered three sets of bellows, leading into three windpipes, giving the Flutist’s lungs three different blowing pressures. The upper set of gears turned a cylinder with cams, triggering a frame of levers that controlled the Flutist’s fingers, windpipe, tongue, and lips. To design a machine that played a flute, Vaucanson had studied human flute players in minute detail. He had devised various ways of transmitting aspects of their playing into the design of his android. For example, to mark out measures he had had a flutist play a tune while another person beat time with a sharp stylus onto the rotating cylinder. 20

The following winter, Vaucanson added two more machines to the show. One was a second android musician, a life-size Provençal shepherd that played twenty minuets and other dance tunes on a pipe grasped in its left hand, while accompanying itself with its right on a drum slung over its shoulder. 21 The pipe had only three holes, which meant that the notes were produced almost entirely by the player’s variations of blowing pressure and tongue stops. Working to reproduce these subtleties in his automaton, Vaucanson found that human pipers employed a much greater range of blowing pressures than they themselves realized. The Piper also yielded another surprising discovery. Vaucanson had assumed that each note would be the product of a given finger position combined with a particular blowing pressure, but he discovered that the blowing pressure for a given note depended upon the preceding note, so that, for example, it required more pressure to produce a D after an E than after a C, obliging him to have twice as many blowing pressures as notes. 22 The higher overtones of the higher note resonate more strongly in the pipe than the lower overtones of the lower note; but pipers themselves were not aware of compensating for this effect, and the physics of overtones was explained only in the 1860s by Hermann von Helmholtz. 23

Detail from an illustration by Gravelot of Vaucanson’s automata: flutist, duck, and piper, ca. 1747–1773. While the bird could flap its wings and cavort duckishly, its main attraction was how it swallowed bits of grain and then excreted them in digested form — Source .

The android musicians did not just make music, a feat that music boxes had achieved for more than two centuries, but they did so using flexible lips, moving tongues, soft fingers, and swelling lungs. They were simulations of the human process of making music, and as the century wore on, the designers of such simulations turned toward the even more complex task of making machines that could mimic human speech.

In 1739, a year after Vaucanson’s duck made its public debut, a surgeon named Claude-Nicolas le Cat, published a description, now lost, of an “automaton man in which one sees executed the principal functions of the animal economy”, circulation, respiration, and “the secretions”. 24 It is not clear what became of this early project, but Le Cat returned to the idea in 1744 when, according to the proceedings of the Académie de Rouen, he read a sensational memoir there. A great crowd was assembled to hear it, and one witness reported, “Monsieur Le Cat told us of his plan for an artificial man . . . . His automaton will have respiration, circulation, quasi-digestion, secretion and chyle, heart, lungs, liver and bladder, and God forgive us, all that follows from it.” 25

Le Cat’s automaton man was to have “all the operations of a living man”, including not only “the circulation of the blood, the movement of the heart, the play of the lungs, the swallowing of food, its digestion, the evacuations, the filling of the blood vessels and their depletion by bleeding”, but also — apparently crossing the Cartesian boundary between mechanical body and rational soul — “even speech and the articulation of words”. 26

This idea, the possibility of simulating articulate speech, had generated a tradition of philosophical discussion over the preceding century. If some continued to find it a quixotic notion, it was in fact literally so: when Don Quixote himself encounters a talking bronze head (connected to a hidden human being), he is fully captivated by it, though his less suggestible squire, Sancho Panza, is unimpressed by its conversation. 27 Cervantes’s contemporary, the Spanish writer on magic, Martín del Río, also found it unreasonable to suppose “that an inanimate thing should produce the human voice and give answers to questions. For this requires life, and breath, and a perfect cooperation of the vital organs, and some discursive ability in the speaker.” 28

1662 print of an engraving by Martin Engelbrecht depicting Don Quixote inspecting the talking, enchanted head — Source .

Several decades later, some if not all the items on del Río’s list seemed possibly achievable in an artificial machine. Athanasius Kircher wrote in 1673, with regard to the legends of Albert the Great’s talking head and the ancient Egyptian speaking statues, that while certain skeptics believed these devices must have been “either non-existent or fraudulent or constructed with the help of the devil”, many others believed it was possible to build such a statue having throat, tongue and other organs of speech that would emit an articulated voice when it was activated by wind. Kircher included a sketch of a design for a talking figure. 29 His student, Gaspar Schott, also a prolific natural philosopher and engineer, adopted the same attitude, even alluding to a question-answering statue that Kircher was building for Queen Christina of Sweden. 30 No doubt the queen’s previous philosophy teacher, Descartes, had interested her in the relations between rational speech and a mechanical body.

Although the idea of simulated speech was not new, around the middle of the eighteenth century, experimental philosophers and mechanicians took a renewed interest in it. They assumed that speech was a bodily function akin to respiration or digestion — they did not explicitly distinguish the rational from the physiological aspects of speaking — and even the skeptics expressed their skepticism in connection with physiological details rather than principled objections. In his effusive review of Vaucanson’s Flutist in 1738, for example, the abbé Desfontaines predicted that articulate speech could never be produced in artificial machinery because the bodily process of speaking would remain impenetrably mysterious: one could never know precisely “what goes on in the larynx and glottis . . . [and] the action of the tongue, its folds, its movements, its varied and imperceptible rubbings, all the modifications of the jaw and the lips.” 31 Speaking was an essentially organic process, Desfontaines reckoned, and could only take place in a living throat.

Desfontaines was not alone in this belief: in this period, skeptics about the possibility of artificial speech generally argued that the human larynx, vocal tract, and mouth were too soft, supple, and malleable to be simulated mechanically. Around 1700, Denys Dodart, personal physician to Louis XIV, presented several memoirs to the Paris Academy of Sciences on the subject of the human voice, in which he argued that the voice and its modulations were caused by constrictions of the glottis, and that these were “inimitable by art”. 32 The writer and academician Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, who was then Perpetual Secretary of the Academy, commented that no wind instrument produced its sound by such a mechanism (the variation of a single opening) and that it seemed “altogether outside the realm of imitation . . . . Nature can use materials that are not at all at our disposal, and she knows how to use them in ways that we are not at all permitted to know.” 33

A last skeptic citing material difficulties was the philosopher and writer Antoine Court de Gébelin, who observed that “the trembling that spreads to all the parts of the glottis, the jigging of its muscles, their shock against the hyoid bone that raises and lowers itself, the repercussions that the air undergoes against the sides of the mouth . . . these phenomena” could only take place in living bodies. 34 On the other hand, there were plenty who disagreed. For example, the polemical materialist Julien Offray de La Mettrie took a look at Vaucanson’s Flutist and concluded that a speaking machine “could no longer be regarded as impossible”. 35

“Organs of the Voice”, plate from Antoine Court de Gébelin’s Primitive World (ca. 1773–1782) — Source .

During the last three decades of the century, several people took up the project of artificial speech. All of them assumed that the sounds of spoken language required a structure as similar as possible to the throat and mouth. This assumption, that a talking machine required simulated speaking organs, had not always dominated thinking about artificial speech. In 1648, John Wilkins, the first secretary of the Royal Society of London, had described plans for a speaking statue that would synthesize, rather than simulate, speech by making use of “inarticulate sounds”. He wrote, “We may note the trembling of water to be like the letter L, the quenching of hot things to the letter Z, the sound of strings, to the letter Ng [ sic ], the jirking of a switch to the letter Q, etc.” 36 But in the 1770s and 80s, builders of speaking machines mostly assumed that it would be impossible to create artificial speech without building a talking head: reproducing the speech organs and simulating the process of speaking.

The first to attempt such a machine was the English poet and naturalist Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) who in 1771 reported that he had “contrived a wooden mouth with lips of soft leather, and with a valve over the back part of it for nostrils.” Darwin’s talking head had a larynx made of “a silk ribbon . . . stretched between two bits of smooth wood a little hollowed.” It said “mama, papa, map and pam” in “a most plaintive tone”. 37

The next to simulate speech was a Frenchman, the abbé Mical, who presented a pair of talking heads to the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1778. The heads contained “several artificial glottises of different forms [arranged] over taut membranes”. By means of these glottises, the heads performed a dialogue in praise of Louis XVI: “The King gives peace to Europe”, intoned the first head; “Peace crowns the King with Glory”, replied the second; “and Peace makes the Happiness of the People”, added the first; “O King Adorable Father of your People their Happiness shows Europe the Glory of your Throne”, concluded the second head. 38

Illustration by E. A. Tilly depicting the abbé Mical’s pair of talking heads, ca. 1783 — Source .

The Paris gossip and memoirist Louis Petit de Bachaumont noted that the heads were life-size, but covered tastelessly in gold. They mumbled some words and swallowed certain letters; moreover, their voices were hoarse and their diction slow (and their conversation, he might have added, uninspiring).

Yet despite all this, they undeniably had “the gift of speech”. The academicians appointed to examine Mical’s talking heads agreed that their enunciation was “very imperfect” but granted their approval to the work anyhow because it was done in imitation of nature and contained “the same results that we admire in dissecting . . . the organ of the voice.” Bachaumont recorded that the academicians were so impressed with the abbé Mical that, on the occasion of the Montgolfière balloon demonstration at Versailles on September 19, 1783, in which a sheep, a rooster, and a duck became the world’s first aviation passengers, the six delegates from the Académie des sciences invited Mical to accompany their delegation and presented him to the king as the author of the celebrated talking heads. 39

The following year, probably at the instigation of the mathematician Leonhard Euler, the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences sponsored a prize competition to determine the nature of the vowels and to construct an instrument like vox humana organ pipes to express them. C. G. Kratzenstein, a member of the Academy, won the prize. He used an artificial glottis (a reed) and organ pipes shaped according to the situation of the tongue, lips, and mouth in the pronunciation of the vowels. 40

Several more people built talking heads before the turn of the century. Among them was a Hungarian engineer named Wolfgang von Kempelen who had been hired at the age of twenty-one by the Empress Maria Theresa to serve at the court of the Holy Roman Empire in Vienna. He had achieved fame in 1769 when, for the amusement of his patroness, Kempelen had built an android Turk that played an expert game of chess (by virtue of the expert human chess player cleverly hidden inside). A couple decades later, Kempelen set out to uncover the secret of articulate speech. In 1791, he published “a description of a speaking machine” in which he reported having attached bellows and resonators to musical instruments that resembled the human voice, such as oboes and clarinets; he had also tried, like Kratzenstein, modifying vox humana organ pipes. 41 Through twenty years of such attempts, he had been sustained, he said, by the conviction that “ speech must be imitable ”. The resulting apparatus had bellows for lungs, a glottis of ivory, a leather vocal tract with a hinged tongue, a rubber oral cavity, a mouth whose resonance could be altered by opening and closing valves, and a nose with two little pipes as nostrils. Two levers on the device connected with whistles and a third with a wire that could be dropped onto the reed. These enabled the machine to pronounce liquids and fricatives: Ss, Zs, and Rs. 42

Plates depicting the components of artificial and natural speech from Wolfgang von Kempelen’s The Mechanism of Speech (1791) — Source .

This machine produced an empirical finding reminiscent of Vaucanson’s discovery that the blowing pressure for a given note depended upon the preceding note. Kempelen reported that he had first tried to produce each sound in a given word or phrase independently but failed because the successive sounds needed to take their shape from one another: “The sounds of speech become distinct only by the proportion that exists among them, and in the linking of whole words and phrases.” Listening to his machine’s blurred speech, Kempelen perceived a further constraint upon the mechanization of language: the reliance of comprehension upon context. 43

Kempelen’s machine was only moderately successful. It reportedly prattled in a childish voice, reciting vowels and consonants. It pronounced words such as “Mama” and “Papa”, and uttered some phrases, such as “you are my friend—I love you with all my heart”, “my wife is my friend”, and “come with me to Paris”, but indistinctly. 44 Today the machine resides at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Germany. Kempelen and his supporters emphasized that the device was imperfect and explained that it was not so much a speaking machine in itself as a machine that demonstrated the possibility of constructing a speaking machine. 45

After this flurry of activity in the 1770s, 80s, and 90s, there was a decline in interest in speech simulation. A few people over the course of the nineteenth century, including the inventors Charles Wheatstone and Alexander Graham Bell, built their own versions of Kempelen’s and Mical’s speaking machines and of other talking heads from an earlier period. 46 But for the most part, designers of artificial speech turned their attention once again to speech synthesis rather than simulation: reproducing the sounds of human speech by other means rather than trying to reproduce the actual organs and physiological processes of speech. 47

In 1828, Robert Willis — a professor of applied mechanics at Cambridge who had earlier rejected the possibility of the Chessplayer’s intelligence — wrote disparagingly that most people who had investigated the nature of the vowel sounds “appear never to have looked beyond the vocal organs for their origin”, apparently assuming that the vowel sounds could not exist without being produced by the vocal organs. In other words, they had treated the vowels as “physiological functions of the human body” rather than as “a branch of acoustics”. In fact, Willis argued, vowel sounds could perfectly well be produced by other means. 48 Whether or not the vocal organs themselves could be simulated artificially became a separate question from whether the sounds of speech could be reproduced. As late as 1850, the French physiologist Claude Bernard wrote in his notebook: “The larynx is a larynx and the crystalline lens is a crystalline lens, that is to say their mechanical or physical conditions are realized nowhere but in the living organism.” 49

Photograph of Joseph Faber’s “Euphonia” talking machine, ca. 1846 — Source .

Disenchantment with speech simulation was so deep that when a German immigrant to America named Joseph Faber designed quite an impressive talking head in the late 1840s, he could not get anyone to take any notice of it. Faber’s talking head was modeled on Kempelen’s and Mical’s, but was far more elaborate. It had the head and torso of a man once again dressed like a Turk, and inside were bellows, an ivory glottis and tongue, a variable resonance chamber, and a mouth cavity with a rubber palate, lower jaw, and cheeks. The machine could pronounce all the vowels and consonants, and was connected by way of levers to a keyboard of seventeen keys, so that Faber could play it like a piano. He first exhibited the machine in New York City in 1844, where it aroused very little interest. He then took it to Philadelphia where he had no better luck. P. T. Barnum found Faber and his talking head there, renamed the machine the “Euphonia”, and took them on tour to London, but even Barnum could not make a success of it. Finally the Euphonia was exhibited in Paris in the late 1870s, where it was mostly ignored, and soon thereafter all traces of it disappear. 50

The moment for talking heads had passed. In the early part of the twentieth century, designers of artificial speech moved on from mechanical to electrical speech synthesis. 51 The simulation of the organs and process of speaking — of the trembling glottis, the malleable vocal tract, the supple tongue and mouth — was specific to the last decades of the eighteenth century, when philosophers and mechanicians and paying audiences were briefly preoccupied with the idea that articulate language was a bodily function: that Descartes’ divide between mind and body might be bridged in the organs of speech.

Notes Show Notes

• On the legend of Albertus Magnus’s artificial man, see Eugenio Battisti, L’antirinascimento (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1962), 226; and Sarah Higley, “The Legend of the Learned Man’s Android”, in *Retelling Tales: Essays in
• El Tostado notably adapted a story associated with Pope Sylvester. See Joseph R. Jones, “Historical Materials for the Study of the Cabeza Encantada Episode in Don Quijote II.62", Hispanic Review 41, no. 1 (1979): 91–92.
• El Tostado quoted in Gabriel Naudé, Apologie pour tous les grands hommes, qui ont esté accusez de magie (Paris: Eschart, 1669), 382–83. For the android’s dictation of Albert’s writings, see the article “Androïdes” in Ephraim Chambers et al., A Supplement to Mr. Chambers’s Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences , 2 vols. (London: W. Innys and J. Richardson, 1753).
• Naudé, Apologie , 385–88.
• Ibid., 389–90. Naudé is referring to the statue of Memnon on the Nile River that ancient authors said made sounds with the rising sun. See, for example, Callistratus, “On the Statue of Memnon”, in Elder Philostratus, Younger Philostratus, Callistratus , trans. Arthur Fairbanks (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 1931. On the speaking statue of Memnon, see also Paul Henry Stanhope, “The Statue of Memnon”, London Quarterly Review (April 1875): 278–84.
• Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique , 4 vols. (Amsterdam: P. Brunel, 1740), 1:131.
• Ibid., 1:130.
• See the article “Androïdes”, in Scott, Supplement .
• Jacques Vaucanson, Mécanisme du fluteur automate , trans. J. T. Desaguliers (Buren, the Netherlands: F. Knuf, 1979), 10–20. “One can substitute another flute entirely in the place of the one he plays”: Luynes, Mémoires, 2:12–13. Similarly, the abbé Desfontaines emphasized that it was “the fingers positioned variously on the holes of the flute that vary the tones . . . . In a word art has done here all that nature does in those who play the flute well. That is what can be seen and heard, beyond a doubt”, in Pierre Desfontaines, “Lettre CLXXX sur le Flûteur automate et l’Aristipe moderne”, Observations sur les écrits modern 12 (March 30, 1738), 339. On audiences’ initial disbelief that the flute player was actually playing his flute, see the reports cited in Alfred Chapuis and Edmond Droz, utomata: A Historical and Technological Study , trans. Alec Reid (Geneva: Editions du Griffon, 1958), 274; Alexander Buchner, Mechanical Musical Instruments , trans. Iris Urwin (London: Batchworth Press, 1959), 85–86; and David Lasocki’s preface to Vaucanson, Mécanisme du fluteur automate , [ii].
• Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, “Eloge de Vaucanson” (1782), in Œuvres de Condorcet , ed. Arthur O'Connor and Fraçois Arago, 12 vols (Paris: Firmin Didot frères, 1847–49), 2:643–60; André Doyon and Lucien Liaigre, Jacques Vaucanson, mècanicien de génie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), chaps. 1–2.
• AS, Registre des procès-verbaux des séances for April 26 and 30, 1739.
• “Nouvelles à la main au marquis de Langaunay”, letter dated May 12, 1738, BNF, Ms Fr. 13700, no 2; Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 30–34, 41.
• Mercure de France (April 1738), 739; Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 51. On the vogue that Vaucanson launched, see also Paul Metzner, Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill, and Self-Promotion in Paris during the Age of Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), chapter 5.
• Le pour et contre (1738), 213; Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 53, 61.
• Desfontaines, “Lettre”, 340. The review of Vaucanson’s treatise on the flute player in the Journal des sçavans also emphasized the role of anatomical and physical research in informing the android’s design. See Journal des sçavans (1739), 441. See also Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 51.
• See d’Alembert’s 1751 article “Androïde”, in Diderot and d’Alembert, Encyclopédie , 1:448.
• Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 41.
• See Vaucanson, Mécanisme du fluteur automate , 10–20. This process was the precursor of the procedure by which the first musical recordings were made, during the second and third decades of the twentieth century, when pianists such as Claude Debussy, Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, Arthur Rubinstein, and Scott Joplin marked out rolls for player pianos.
• Doyon and Liaigre, Vaucanson , 53, 61.
• Vaucanson, “Letter to the Abbé Desfontaines”, in Mécanisme du fluteur automate , 23– 24.
• Hermann von Helmholtz explained the effects of partials in his Lehre von den Tonempfindungen . I am grateful to Myles Jackson for helping me to figure out the causes underlying Vaucanson’s acoustical discovery.
• This description appeared in conjunction with Le Cat’s Traité de la saignée (1739) as its “experimental part”, in order “to confirm by experience” Le Cat’s theory of bleeding; see Doyon and Liaigre, “Méthodologie”, 298–99.
• Le Cornier de Cideville to Fontenelle, December 15, 1744, in Tougard, Documents , 1:52–54, at 53. See Doyon and Liaigre, “Méthodologie”, 300.
• Registre-Journal des Assemblées et Déliberations de l’Académie des sciences . . . établie on 1744: 3 (manuscript non classé de la Bibliothèque publique de Rouen), cited in Doyon and Liaigre, “Méthodologie”, 300.
• Cervantes, Don Quixote , trans. Samuel Putnam (New York: Viking, 1958), chap. 62. On this episode in the novel, see Jones, “Historical Materials”, 101–2.
• Martin Del Río, Disquisitionum magicarum libri sex (Venice, 1640), 26.
• Kircher, Phonurgia Nova , 161, quoted in Jones, “Historical Materials”, 99.
• Jones, “Historical Materials”, 99.
• Desfontaines, “Lettre”, 341.
• Denys Dodart, “Sur les causes de la voix de l’homme et de ses différens tons”, in Année 1700: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences (Amsterdam: Gerard Kuyper, 1700): 244–93; Denys Dodart, “Supplément au Mémoire sur la voix et sur les tons”, in Année 1706: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences (Amsterdam: Pierre de Coup, 1706): 136–48; Denys Dodart, “Suite de la première partie du Supplément”, in Année 1706: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des sciences *Amsterdam: Pierre de Coup, 1706), 388–410; and Denys Dodart, “Supplément au Mémoire sur la voix et sur les tons”, in Année 1707: Mémoires of Histoire de l’Académie royale des science (Amsterdam: Pierre de Coup, 1707): 66–81. For Fontenelle’s commentary on Dodart’s memoirs, see Fontenelle’s three articles “Sur la formation de la voix” (1700, 1706, and 1707) in the volumes cited above.
• Fontenelle, “Sur la formation de la voix” (1707), 20.
• Antoine Court de Gébelin, Le monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne , 9 vols. (Paris: Chez l’auteur, 1773–82), 2:83–84.
• La Mettrie, L’homme machine , 190.
• John Wilkins, Mathematicall Magick, or, The Wonders That May Be Performed by Mathematicall Geometry (London: Sa. Gellibrand, 1648), 177–78.
• Charles Darwin, The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society (London: For J. Johnson by T. Bensley, 1803): 119–20.
• Têtes parlantes inventées et exécutées par M. l’abbé Mical. (Extrait d’un ouvrage qui a pour titre: Système de prononciation figurée, applicable à toutes les langues et exécuté sur les langues française et anglaise) , VZ-1853, BNF; Rivarol, “Lettre à M. le president de”, 20–24; Rivarol, Discours , 79–82; Bachaumont, Mémoires , 11: 237, 13: 270, 26: 214–216; Séris, Langages et machines , 245; Chapuis and Gélis, Monde , 2:204–206. According to Rivarol, Mical also built “an entire Concert in which the figures, as big as life, made Music from morning till evening”, “Lettre à M. le president de”, 29.
• AS, Registre des procès-verbaux des séances for September 3, 1783; Bachaumont, Mémoires , 26: 214–16.
• Thomas L. Hankins and Robert J. Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 188–89, 198; Jean-Pierre Séris, Langages et machines à l’âge classique (Paris: Hachette, 1995), 247.
• Kempelen, Mécanisme de la parole , 394–464. On Kempelen’s and others’ attempts to simulate human speech in the last third of the eighteenth century, see also Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , chap. 8; and Séris, Langages et machines , 245– 46.
• Kempelen, Mécanisme de la parole , 395–400, 405, 415–59.
• Ibid., 401.
• Ibid., 463.
• Karl Gottlieb Windisch, Inanimate Reason; or, A Circumstantial Account of that Astonishing Piece of Mechanism, De Kempelen’s Chess-Player (London: S. Bladon, 1784), 49.
• On Wheatstone’s and Bell’s reproductions, see James L. Flanagan, “Voices of Men and Machines”, in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 51 (1972): 1375–87; James L. Flanagan, Speech Analysis, Synthesis, and Perception (Berlin: Springer, 1965), 166–71; M. R. Schroeder, “A Brief History of Synthetic Speech” Speech Communication 13 (1993): 231– 37; and Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , 218–19.
• Hermann von Helmholtz, for example, built a machine using tuning forks and resonance chambers to produce the vowel sounds, described in Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music , trans. Alexander J. Ellis (New York: Dover, 1954), 399.
• Robert Willis, “On the Vowel Sounds, and on Reed Organ-Pipes.” Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 3 (1830): 231–68.
• Claude Bernard, Cahier de notes, 1850–1860 , ed. Mirko Dražen Grmek (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), 171. This was probably in response to the assertion of Bernard’s mentor, François Magendie, that “I see in the lung a bellows, in the trachea, a vent, in the glottis a reed . . . . We have for the eye an optical apparatus, for the voice a musical instrument, for the stomach a living retort.” François Magendie, Phénomènes physiques de la vie: Leçons professées au collège de France , 4 vols (Paris: J.-B. Baillière, 1842).
• See David Lindsay, “Talking Head”, in Invention and Technology (Summer 1997): 57–63; and Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , 214–16.
• Cf. Hankins and Silverman, Instruments and the Imagination , 216, where the authors identify a partial and passing return to “more humanoid apparatus” in the “last years of the nineteenth century”.

Public Domain Works

• Internet Archive
• Library of Congress French original, 1738
• Oregon Health and Science University Library
• Internet Archive French translation
• Project Gutenberg

Further Reading

A collection of essays examining efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to understand living beings by comparison with inanimate mechanisms.

An exploration into how the automata of early modern Europe can be seen as models for the new science of living things, tracing questions of science and agency through Descartes, Leibniz, Lamarck, and Darwin, among others.

The eighteenth century saw the creation of a number of remarkable mechanical androids that served as illustrations of the sentimental culture of a civil society rather than expressions of anxiety about the mechanisation of humans by industrial technology.

The Public Domain Review receives a small percentage commission from sales made via the links to Bookshop.org (10%) and Amazon (4.5%). Thanks for supporting the project! For more recommended books, see all our “ Further Reading ” books, and browse our dedicated Bookshop.org stores for US and UK readers.

Jessica Riskin is Frances and Charles Field Professor of History at Stanford University. Her teaching, research and writing focus on the history of modern science, ideas, culture and politics. She is the author most recently of The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument Over What Makes Living Thing Tick and is currently writing a book about Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the French naturalist who coined the term “biology” around 1800 and developed the first theory of evolution.

Excerpted and adapted from “The First Android”, a chapter from The Restless Clock by Jessica Riskin. © 2016 by Jessica Riskin. Reprinted with permission of The University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.

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• Culture & History

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RGU Student Blog

Top tips to make new friends abroad.

Painting student Vasiliki shares advice for international students in Aberdeen or those seeking to study abroad to meet new people and make friends. Here are her top tips to navigating new connections in unfamiliar land:

Hey there! Venturing into unfamiliar territory is an exciting ride filled with opportunities for growth and discovery. But let’s face it, finding friends in a new place can sometimes feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. No worries, I will go over a couple of ways for you to go about meeting and connecting with new people when you’re far from home.

1. Embrace cultural exchange

One of the coolest parts about being in a different place is getting to learn more from the locals and share your own experiences. Dive into the local scene, check out events and activities, and you’ll meet folks who share your curiosity for exploring new horizons.

2. Seek out expat communities

Expat communities are like little hubs of connection all around the world. They’re a great way to meet people who understand the ups and downs of being in a new place. Join online groups, attend meetups, and you’ll find a supportive network of fellow travellers who are eager to make new friends.

3. Be open and approachable

Making friends in a new place is all about being open to new experiences and putting yourself out there. Strike up conversations with people you meet, whether they’re locals or fellow expats. Keep it casual and genuine, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly connections can form.

4. Volunteer and get involved

Volunteering is a fantastic way to meet like-minded people and make a positive impact in your new community. Look for volunteer opportunities that align with your interests and values, whether it’s helping out at a local charity or getting involved in community projects. Not only will you be giving back, but you will also be building meaningful connections along the way. You can also find volunteering opportunities at the Union !

I know making friends in a new place might seem daunting, but with a positive attitude and a willingness to step out of your comfort zone, you’ll find friends in no time!

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How Trump’s guilty verdict will impact the 2024 presidential election

Trump may lose some support, but the drop could be temporary.

Scandals have swirled around former President Donald Trump since his first presidential campaign in 2016. But as of Thursday — having been found guilty on all counts in his New York hush-money case — he is now officially a convicted felon. Could that fact cut through all the other headlines and be a game-changer for the 2024 election?

At first glance, there's some evidence from polls that this conviction will meaningfully erode Trump's support. An April survey from CNN/SSRS found that, while 76 percent of Trump supporters said they would support Trump regardless, 24 percent said they "might reconsider" their support for him if he was convicted. And a May poll from Emerson College found that 25 percent of voters said a guilty verdict in New York would make them less likely to vote for Trump.

A few pollsters have also asked two versions of the standard "who will you vote for?" question in recent weeks : one straightforward one, and one that asked respondents who they would vote for if Trump was convicted in the New York case. On average, Trump went from leading by 1 percentage point in these polls without considering the conviction to trailing by 6 points with it.

But Democrats would be wise to not get too excited about these numbers. Take another look at the wording of the CNN/SSRS poll: Twenty-four percent of Trump supporters said they "might reconsider" their vote. That's not the same as "will definitely change" their vote! In light of this conviction, many Trump supporters might simply have a crisis of confidence about their vote without outright switching to President Joe Biden.

That's basically what another poll from ABC News/Ipsos found. Like CNN/SSRS, they asked Trump supporters what they would do if Trump was convicted in the New York case, but they provided options for both "reconsider" and "no longer support." Sixteen percent said they would reconsider supporting Trump, but only 4 percent said they would no longer support him. (Similar to CNN/SSRS, 80 percent said they would continue to support him.)

Likewise, you should always be careful with polls like Emerson's that ask Americans whether something makes them more or less likely to vote a certain way. Respondents often don't take these questions literally ; instead, they use them as a proxy for whether they approve or disapprove of the thing being asked about.

Indeed, over three-quarters of those who told Emerson a conviction would make them "less likely" to vote for Trump had told the pollster on a different question that they were already voting for Biden. By contrast, only 11 percent of Trump voters said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for him — so the potential impact on his actual support is much smaller than it initially appears.

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Other polls also support the theory that this conviction won't cause mass defections to Biden. Those horse-race polls I cited above? They don't actually show many Trump voters switching their vote to Biden. Instead, most of the support Trump loses goes into the undecided column or to an unnamed, hypothetical "someone else":

On average, Trump loses 6 points of support after a conviction is taken into account — but Biden gains only 1 point. "Someone else" or undecided gains 5 points. That's consistent with the idea that this conviction will make some Trump supporters squeamish about the idea of pulling the lever for him, so they will stop identifying as Trump supporters for a while — but most of them won't go so far as to vote for Biden.

And that, in turn, could indicate that this drop in Trump's support will be short-lived. Sure, Trump supporters who abandon him after this conviction could conceivably abstain from voting or vote for a third-party candidate. But the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, so there's also a good chance that they will eventually get over their discomfort and return to Trump's side, especially considering there are still five months left until Election Day — plenty of time for Trump to spin a narrative that helps voters overcome any hangups about voting for a convicted felon.

We don't need to search far for a precedent for this. In October 2016, Trump's campaign was blindsided by the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape, on which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Polls at the time showed that the tape made some Republicans uncomfortable about supporting Trump , and his national support in 538's polling average at the time fell by about 1 point. But Trump's support quickly recovered: Within three weeks of the tape's release, he was polling better than he was before it.

That said, even if most Trump defectors only switch to undecided and eventually return to the fold, that doesn't mean the conviction will have zero effect on the race. That average 1-point gain for Biden isn't nothing — in a close race (which 2024 is shaping up to be), it could mean the difference between winning and losing. But it's also important not to overstate the conviction's impact. If the hush-money trial ends up determining the presidential race, it will likely be because the campaign was a game of inches anyway.

Irena Li contributed research.

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