You have been previously, however have you ever turn into a “marginal friend”? | EUROtoday

On Apr 12, 2025

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.

“FRançois, what a surprise to see you here! One fine day, Guillaume comes face to face with a former high school comrade in an Indian restaurant. In the final year, they were part of the same group of friends. But the years have passed and the links have gradually distended, both of which have followed different studies. Delighted with this unexpected reunion, François and Guillaume take news from each other. “We ought to see one another quickly,” says Guillaume, leaving him. The following week, he offers him by message to join him for a bowling evening. François declines. And will not respond to the following invitations.

“I’ve lengthy thought that we have been shut mates. But, in actuality, our hyperlink was above all contextual: it was because of the truth that we belonged to the identical circle, analyzes immediately Guillaume. Now that this group has grieved, it’s nonetheless blissful to change just a few phrases with me on the street or on Messenger, however it now not sees the curiosity that one finds itself “in real life”, deliberately. »»

A buddy who has turn into peripheral

In quick, Guillaume had turn into what the Anglo-Saxons, all the time fast to conceptualize the slightest facet of on a regular basis life, designate below the time period of Friging Friend : An individual you come throughout recurrently, for instance in frequent mates or neighborhood occasions, with which you’ve got enjoyable discussing however that he wouldn’t come to the thoughts to ask your birthday. And with whom you wouldn’t share your existential issues. There will not be actually an ideal time period in French since they’re just a little greater than easy “knowledge”, however to not the purpose of being “close friends”. The literal translation of “Marginal Friend” is sort of related since it’s on the fringes of your social circle. Or “peripheral friend”.

Do you discover it unusual that Guillaume believed their stronger friendship than it was? You would in all probability have finished as a lot. “In his social relations, the human being works by the presumption of reciprocity: if he appreciates a person on the emotional level, he hypothesizes that this person also appreciates him,” explains Lubomir Lamy, professor of social psychology at Paris-Descartes University and creator of a number of books on friendship, that The level contacted.

Read too Friendly reunion: “It’s as if we had never left …” On this topic, researchers from the MIT and the University of Tel Aviv led an investigation to 84 college students, aged 23 to 38, following a college course in utilized administration. The pattern was made up of 40 % males and 60 % ladies. Each participant was invited to nominate in a questionnaire the individuals he thought-about his mates among the many different individuals within the group. He additionally had, for every particular person within the group, to point these whom he thought would designate him as their buddy.

The result’s stunning: in 94 % (1,273 out of 1,353) of instances the place a topic designated one other topic as a “friend”, he additionally anticipated that the opposite topic designates him in return as a “friend”. However, researchers discover that nearly half (47 %) of friendships are literally non -reciprocal. Take it as much as say: you might be in all probability the Friging Friend certainly one of your “friends”! You are absolutely not mistaken along with your “best friends”, however it’s a secure guess that, amongst these you take into account as your “good friends”, some don’t put you in the identical class.

When friendship hurts

Discover that we’re solely a Friging Friend For certainly one of our mates will not be a pleasing factor. “It’s a self-esteem,” explains Lubomir Lamy. Man is thus made that he’s based mostly on the gaze of others to evaluate himself. Feeling rejected by the opposite makes us suppose that our qualities are much less quite a few than we thought earlier than. Nothing dramatic both. “After the shock of awareness, I accepted the idea that our relationship was still of the order of friendship, certainly more tenuous than I would have believed, relativizes Guillaume. I did not laugh at my social circle, however. It would have been difficult for him since François and have some close friends in common.

Admittedly, these marginal friendships cannot bring us as much emotionally as our most intense friendships. Nevertheless, count Fringing Friends is beneficial to the personal development of each. Indeed, our closest friends tend to look like us: the same socio-professional category, same political opinions, same religious beliefs … because they do not always resemble you as much as your best friends, your Fringing Friends Can open to other social circles, new cultural or sports activities, etc. Your Fringing Friends Can also literally change your life by talking about a job opportunity that you will seize later or by becoming your husband (SE).

The crisis of marginal friendships

But do we still speak to his marginal friends? Less and less, maybe. In February 2024, journalist Juliana Kaplan, of the Business Insider media, titled that “America faces a disaster of Fringing Friends ». Report it in pointed the explanations: the Americans communicate much less and fewer to their neighbors as a result of the cafes, the parks, the libraries are steadily closing. They now not attend union conferences. Masses fulfill the church buildings lower than previously. In different phrases, the bodily locations the place it was customary to cross these peripheral mates are much less and fewer frequented.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

The identical mechanisms are at work in our nation. Only one in ten energetic French individuals joined a union, in comparison with 30 % within the early Nineteen Fifties, estimated IFRAP in 2019. The devitalization of metropolis facilities, because of on-line commerce and enormous areas positioned on the outskirts of cities, can also be a French actuality. Some 7 % of French individuals say they go to mass at the least as soon as a month, in comparison with 9 % in 2008.

Conversely, digital areas provide the opportunity of multiplying “marginal friendships” – these peripheral, lighter however valuable relationships, which populate our lives. However, are these digital hyperlinks actually equal to conventional locations? Nothing is much less sure. Indeed, if these on-line friendships can convey a type of comparable affection, they deprive themselves of bodily contact – this silent language infinitely richer than just a few posts, caught up or emojis mechanically clicked. So, as a lot as doable, domesticate your peripheral friendships in the true world. They deserve higher than like.

https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/vous-etiez-proches-autrefois-mais-etes-vous-devenu-un-ami-marginal-11-04-2025-2587081_23.php