"A single soul dwelling in two bodies"
It is periodically common in the Anglosphere, at present times, to speak of a loneliness epidemic. It doesn't get much air time when it does show up on the skinner screen, so it isn't really a topic that people pretend to care much about, until the screen says it's time. The erotic version of this idea is,quite literally, 'sexier', so talk of whatever new label is much more entertaining. I am averse to using others' statistics in general, so I won't use them. If you don't 'see' this phenomenon, don't worry about it, who am I to judge?
Serious caveats out of the way, it seems like a bit of a problem if people don't have friends.
Of course, people do choose not to have friends, the same way they choose not to eat or choose not to have money.
Yet it seems like bread, coin and sex are all people enjoy complaining about! I don't believe that complaining about these kinds of things actually improves much, but do keep reading please.
The food that is eaten is fake. The money that is loaned is unreal. The sex, and so too the friendships?
"Well, as long as you get your calories."
"Well, as long as you can use it."
"Well, as long as you can get off."
Not to be too snobbish, but there really isn't much difference between this kind of life and that of an animal pushing levers for treats.
With my novice understanding of Confucianism, forgive my misrepresentations, playing the foil there are five fundamental relationships:
This might be all well and good, but what would the equivalent for the 'Western World', the formerly 'Christian World':
I admit this is an, almost, unforgiveable stretch, because the formerly 'Christian World' has produced many a notion of 'Universal Brotherhood','Consent of the Governed' and for over two millenia, countless priests and laymen have spoken, heard and read of 'being our brother's keeper' and of 'husbands loving their wives' and of 'renduring unto Caesar what was his'. GEN 4:9, EPH 5:25, MAT 22:21 and so on.
It seems that in recent times all relationships have been reduced to a kind of 'friendship'. Your wife has to be your 'best-friend'. Your boss and teacher tried and try befriend you. Your political leaders are praised by how friendly and relatable they are to you. You don't even have a lover anymore, you have a 'friend with benefits'. Friendship is really the only kind of relationship that has it's full expression at all scales of society. It is no longer common to think of the 'State as father' or even 'State as Husband', likewise with the 'Church as Mother', these are all just 'friendships' now. In self-help, it appears common for people with 'low self-esteem' to be told to treat themselves like they would a dear friend.
The point to make about friendship is that it appears the most fleeting of the five unique relationships mentioned above. This isn't to say that divorce, fratricide, patricide, filicide, uxoricide, democide, regicide and other abuses with cool Latin names didn't exist in my romantic literary view of the past, it's just that of these five 'Friend and friend' seems to have the weakest bonds. But, seemingly, paradoxically this is the relationship that has had the best survival. Friendship is really the only institutional relation that actually exists. It is so fundamental to our life as we know it that you squirmed at it being called an 'institution'.
You can critize 'dead-beat' fathers, unjust rulers, and unfaithful spouses. But it seems unthinkable to question the 'institution' of friends. If you don't like your government you can ask for a new one at quadrennial confessional or 'vote with your feet'(This is actually a really perverse way to put it). Your wife and kids? Surely the 'freedom' and peace of mind is worth the 50% income cut. The rest of your family? Keep ignoring their calls like you already have been. But if you have a 'bad friend' that is 'weighing you down', there is this feeling of trying to holding and pulling them up, dragging them if need be. Even though among some, not saying which half of the population I am jokingly not referring to, to cut off dead weight, many do feel a very strong love for their friends. To the point that many love their friends way more than the 'natural' relations of their family.
Friendship is a miracle. It is the base on which any kind of language can even exist. Click here if you forgot
What is even more miraculous is that it seems quite easy to acquire a friend.
Think back on your early life, or any time you have gotten a friend.
Friendship is mutual acknowledgement.
Borrowing from aged commentary, Marriage was commonly thought of as 'Two Becoming One', friendship would be something like 'One Being in Two'. again
Marriage is 'Being of One Flesh', while Friendship would be 'Being of One Spirit.'
Great pity for the friendless who have not a name to call!
All talks of politics and n-ologies and knowledge and theories and so on are all wasted without the constant deep and solemn breath of Friendship. It is actually insane to speak of a 'Society™' that stifles Friendship. This is autophagous suicide. 'Divided houses' exist only linguistically. We have been told of Sons and Fathers set against each other, Husbands and wives, old and young, brother and brother, weak and strong. But friend against friend?
Friendship isn't a sacrament and there really isn't any unified formal or informal custom to getting a friend. You don't have to bring offerings to their family to request friendship, but friends are race unto themselves! Like stated earlier, Friendship is mutual acknowledgement. This is ultimately the basis on which the notion of "Equality" stems from. That two people be of the same kind, except that this appraisal isn't made by the individuals in question, but by a third party. If someone is saying they are your friend, they are proclaiming their love for you, and if you respond in kind, they are proclaiming their love for themselves too! You can even get friends by just 'being around people' for a certain amount of time, without trying to especially impress them, at least they way you would a romantic partner. Friendship seems to really just happen 'naturally'.
"You make Friendship seem really splendid and great. If it's so great, why is it so hard for people to make friends? Please be my friend!"
Like with food, sex et.c. surrogates that don't completely fulfill the totality of the desire, or most of it, are to 'blame'. Is a streamer mentioning your pseudonym only after you 'donate' money to the stream the same as a call from a friend you've had for a decade and a half? The answer is YES! It is! Which is precisely why people do that kind of thing. If 'junk food' was irredeemably bad, consumption would be avoided the way Crude Oil and Barium Chloride are for eating, though you should definitely not consume any of these. The fact that the friendship might be online or through letters is only a factor if you think that an individual's soul is not actually present in these forms, possible, though I personally disagree.