"We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
"The definition of art, and therefore through it the art of living, is an object of struggle among the classes"
― Pierre Bordieu, Distinction
This website is about friendship, in all its hope and glory.
What do people look for in others when deciding whether to be friends with somebody? Do they identify certain character traits, such as the way that person speaks or the clothes they wear? Perhaps they have ideas about who they are and who they want to be and choose people based on similarity to these values? Perhaps people do not consciously choose friends at all and such "judgments" can be entirely unconscious?
We aim to examine these questions from a wide variety of angles, drawing on various intellectual apparatuses and traditions.
We have conducted surveys and interviews and analyzed the qualitative and quantitative data collected. We begin to see what types of people would prefer similar friends and what types of people like different friends. We also start to see unique features of friendship and the social and communicative context in which friendship is embedded.