Following Friendship Rules

1. Show support. Within a friendship, you should provide emotional support and offer assistance in times of need, without having to be asked (Burleson & Samter, 1994). You also should accept and respect your friend’s valued social identities. When he or she changes majors, tries out for team captain, or opts to be a stay-at-home mom or dad, support the decision—even if it’s one you yourself wouldn’t make.
2. Seek support. The flip side of the first rule is that when you’re in a friendship you should not only deliver support but seek support and counsel when needed, disclosing your emotional burdens to your friends. Other than sharing time and activities, mutual self-disclosure serves as the glue that binds friendships together (Dainton, Zelley, & Langan, 2003).
3. Respect privacy. At the same time friends anticipate both support and disclosure, they also recognize that friendships have more restrictive boundaries for sharing personal information than do romantic or family relationships. Recognize this, and avoid pushing your friend to share information that he or she considers too personal. Also resist sharing information about yourself that’s intensely private or irrelevant to your friendship.
4. Keep confidences. A critical feature of enduring friendships is trust. When friends share personal information with you, do not betray their confidence by sharing it with others.
5. Defend your friends. Part of successful friendships is the feeling that friends “have your back.” Your friends count on you to stand up for them, so defend them online and off, in situations where they are being attacked either to their face or behind their back.
6. Avoid public criticism. Friends may disagree or even disapprove of each other’s behavior on occasion. But airing your grievances publicly in ways that make your friends look bad will only hurt your friendships. Avoid questioning a friend’s loyalty or commenting on a friend’s weight in front of other people.
7. Make your friends happy. An essential ingredient to successful friendships is striving to make your friends feel good while you’re in their company. You can do this by practicing positivity: communicating with them in a cheerful and optimistic fashion, doing unsolicited favors for them, and buying or making gifts for them.
8. Manage jealousy. Unlike long-term romantic relationships, friendships aren’t exclusive. Your close friends likely will have other close friends, perhaps even friends who are more intimate than you. Accept that each of your friends has other good friends as well, and constructively manage any jealousy that arises in you.
9. Share humor. Successful friends spend a good deal of their time joking with and teasing each other in affectionate ways. Enjoying a similar sense of humor is an essential aspect of most long-term friendships.
10. Maintain equity. In enduring, mutually satisfying friendships, the two people give and get in roughly equitable proportions (Canary & Zelley, 2000). Help maintain this equity by conscientiously repaying debts, returning favors, and keeping the exchange of gifts and compliments balanced.