essay about annoying friends

Essay on Annoying Friends

Students are often asked to write an essay on Annoying 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 Annoying Friends

Introduction.

Friends make our life fun, but sometimes they can be annoying too. Annoying friends are those who do something that bothers us. They may be too noisy, always late, or always want things their way.

Types of Annoying Friends

There are different types of annoying friends. Some like to talk too much about themselves, while others love to give unwanted advice. Some friends are always late, making others wait. And some friends always want to win, even in fun games.

Dealing with Annoying Friends

Dealing with annoying friends can be tough. It’s important to be patient and kind. Try to talk to them about the problem. If they don’t listen, it’s okay to spend less time with them.

Annoying friends can make us feel upset. But remember, nobody is perfect. We all have our annoying habits. It’s important to be understanding and patient with our friends.

250 Words Essay on Annoying Friends

What are annoying friends.

Annoying friends are those friends who sometimes upset us with their actions or words. They may not mean to hurt us, but their behavior can make us feel uncomfortable or irritated. They are still our friends, but their actions can make it hard for us to enjoy our time with them.

There are many types of annoying friends. Some friends always talk about themselves and never listen to you. Other friends might always be late or cancel plans at the last minute. Some friends might even borrow things and forget to return them. These actions can make us feel unimportant or frustrated.

Dealing with annoying friends can be tricky. We might feel angry or upset, but we also care about our friends. It’s important to talk to our friends about how we feel. We should tell them in a kind and respectful way that their actions are making us feel upset. This can help them understand how we feel and they might change their behavior.

Why Annoying Friends Are Still Friends

Even though they can be annoying, these friends are still our friends. They may have good qualities that we appreciate. Maybe they make us laugh, or they are always there for us when we need help. It’s important to remember that nobody is perfect. We all have things that can annoy others. We should try to be understanding and patient with our friends, just as we want them to be with us.

In conclusion, annoying friends can be hard to deal with, but they are still our friends. We should talk to them about their behavior and remember to be patient and understanding. After all, friendship is about accepting each other, even with our flaws.

500 Words Essay on Annoying Friends

Friends are like the family we choose. They can bring joy, comfort, and love into our lives. But sometimes, we have friends who can also be annoying. Annoying friends can be those who constantly interrupt, are always late, or never stop talking about themselves.

Friends come in all shapes and sizes, and so do their annoying habits. Some friends might talk too much without letting others speak. Others might always be late, making everyone else wait. Some friends might always be on their phones, even when you’re trying to have a conversation with them. Then there are those who always want to be the center of attention, not letting others shine.

How to Deal with Annoying Friends

It’s not easy to deal with annoying friends. But there are a few ways to make it easier. One way is to talk to them about their annoying habits. Many times, people don’t realize they’re being annoying. By talking to them, you can help them understand how their behavior affects you and others.

Another way is to set boundaries. If a friend is always late, tell them you’ll only wait for a certain amount of time. If they’re always on their phone, ask them to put it away when you’re together. Setting boundaries can help your friend realize their annoying habits and work on changing them.

The Importance of Patience and Understanding

Even though it’s hard, it’s important to be patient and understanding with annoying friends. Everyone has flaws, including us. We might also have habits that annoy our friends. Being patient and understanding can help build stronger friendships.

Remember, nobody is perfect. Everyone has their good and bad sides. Annoying habits can be changed. It might take time, but with patience and understanding, your annoying friends can become less annoying.

Annoying friends can be a challenge to deal with. But with open communication, setting boundaries, and a lot of patience, these friendships can be made better. After all, every friend is unique, and each friendship is special in its own way. Even the most annoying friends can bring joy and happiness into our lives. So, let’s appreciate our friends, annoying habits and all.

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

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

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French teenagers on a boat in the Seine river, Paris, 1988. Photo by David Alan Harvey/Magnum

Bad friends

Even the best of friends can fill you with tension and make you sick. why does friendship so readily turn toxic.

by Carlin Flora   + BIO

Think of a time when you sat across from a friend and felt truly understood. Deeply known. Maybe you sensed how she was bringing out your ‘best self’, your cleverest observations and wittiest jokes. She encouraged you. She listened, articulated one of your patterns, and then gently suggested how you might shift it for the better. The two of you gossiped about your mutual friends, skipped between shared memories, and delved into cherished subjects in a seamlessly scripted exchange full of shorthand and punctuated with knowing expressions. Perhaps you felt a warm swell of admiration for her, and a simultaneous sense of pride in your similarity to her. You felt deep satisfaction to be valued by someone you held in such high regard: happy, nourished and energised through it all.

These are the friendships that fill our souls, and bolster and shape our identities and life paths. They have also been squeezed into social science labs enough times for us to know that they keep us mentally and physically healthy: good friends improve immunity , spark creativity , drop our blood pressure , ward off dementia among the elderly , and even decrease our chances of dying at any given time. If you feel you can’t live without your friends, you’re not being melodramatic.

But even our easiest and richest friendships can be laced with tensions and conflicts, as are most human relationships. They can lose a bit of their magic and fail to regain it, or even fade out altogether for tragic reasons, or no reason at all. Then there are the not-so-easy friendships; increasingly difficult friendships; and bad, gut-wrenching, toxic friendships. The pleasures and benefits of good friends are abundant, but they come with a price. Friendship, looked at through a clear and wide lens, is far messier and more lopsided than it is often portrayed.

The first cold splash on an idealised notion of friendship is the data showing that only about half of friendships are reciprocal . This is shocking to people, since research confirms that we actually assume nearly all our friendships are reciprocal. Can you guess who on your list of friends wouldn’t list you?

One explanation for imbalance is that many friendships are aspirational : a study of teens shows that people want to be friends with popular people, but those higher up the social hierarchy have their pick (and skew the average). A corroborating piece of evidence, which was highlighted by Steven Strogatz in a 2012 article in The New York Times, is the finding that your Facebook ‘friends’ always have, on average, more ‘friends’ than you do. So much for friendship being an oasis from our status-obsessed world.

‘Ambivalent’ relationships, in social science parlance, are characterised by interdependence and conflict. You have many positive and negative feelings toward these people. You might think twice about picking up when they call. These relationships turn out to be common, too. Close to half of one’s important social network members are identified as ambivalent. Granted, more of those are family members (whom we’re stuck with) than friends, but still, for friendship, it’s another push off the pedestal.

Friends who are loyal, reliable, interesting companions – good! – can also be bad for you, should they have other qualities that are less desirable. We know through social network research that depressed friends make it more likely you’ll be depressed, obese friends make it more likely you’ll become obese, and friends who smoke or drink a lot make it more likely you’ll smoke and drink more.

Other ‘good’ friends might have, or start to have, goals, values or habits that misalign with your current or emerging ones. They certainly haven’t ‘done’ anything to you. But they aren’t a group that validates who you are, or that will effortlessly lift you up toward your aims over time. Stay with them, and you’ll be walking against the wind.

In addition to annoying us, these mixed-bag friendships harm our health. A 2003 study by Julianne Holt-Lunstad from Brigham Young University and Bert Uchino from the University of Utah asked people to wear blood-pressure monitors and write down interactions with various people. Blood pressure was higher with ambivalent relationships than it was with friends or outright enemies. This is probably due to the unpredictability of these relationships, which leads us to be vigilant: Will Jen ruin Christmas this year? Ambivalent relationships have also been associated with increased cardiovascular reactivity, greater cellular ageing , lowered resistance to stress, and a decreased sense of wellbeing.

One research team, though, found that ambivalent friendships might have benefits in the workplace. They showed that in these pairings workers are more likely to put themselves in the other’s shoes, in part because they are trying to figure out what the relationship means and what it is. Also, because ambivalent friendships make you feel uncertain about where you stand, they can push you to work harder to establish your position.

‘Frenemies’ are perhaps a separate variety in that they are neatly multi-layered – friendliness atop rivalry or dislike – as opposed to the ambivalent relationship’s admixture of love, hate, annoyance, pity, devotion and tenderness. Plenty of people have attested to the motivating force of a frenemy at work, as well as in the realms of romance and parenting.

A s with unhappy families, there are countless ways a friend can be full-on ‘bad’, no ambivalence about it. Susan Heitler, a clinical psychologist in Denver, and Sharon Livingston, a psychologist and marketing consultant in New York, have studied the issue, and found some typical qualities: a bad friend makes you feel competitive with her other friends; she talks much more about herself than you do about yourself; she criticises you in a self-righteous way but is defensive when you criticise her; she makes you feel you’re walking on eggshells and might easily spark her anger or disapproval; she has you on an emotional rollercoaster where one day she’s responsive and complimentary and the next she freezes you out.

In 2014 , a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh found that, as the amount of negativity in relationships increased for healthy women aged over 50, so did their risk of developing hypertension. Negative social interactions – incidents including excessive demands, criticism, disappointment and disagreeable exchanges – were related to a 38 per cent increased risk. For men, there was no link between bad relationships and high blood pressure. This is likely because women care more about, and are socialised to pay more attention to, relationships.

Negative interactions can lead to inflammation, too, in both men and women. Jessica Chiang, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted a study showing as much, has said that an accumulation of social stressors could cause physical damage, just like an actual toxin.

Some of our most hurtful friendships start out good, but then became bad. Among teens, for example, the rates of cyber aggression are 4.3 times higher between friends than between friends of friends. Or as Diane de Poitiers, the 16th-century mistress of King Henry II of France, said: ‘To have a good enemy, choose a friend: he knows where to strike.’

The writer Robert Greene addresses the slippery slope in his book The 48 Laws of Power (1998). Bringing friends into your professional endeavours can aid the gradual crossover from ‘good’ to ‘bad’, he warns, in part because of how we react to grand favours:

Strangely enough, it is your act of kindness that unbalances everything. People want to feel they deserve their good fortune. The receipt of a favour can become oppressive: it means you have been chosen because you are a friend, not necessarily because you are deserving. There is almost a touch of condescension in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: a little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades.

Ah – so too much giving and ‘a little more honesty’ are friendship-disrupters? That conclusion, which runs counter to the ethos of total openness and unlimited generosity between friends, provides a clue as to why there are so many ‘bad’, ‘good and bad’, and ‘good, then bad’ friends. In his paper ‘The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism’ (1971), the evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers concludes that ‘each individual human is seen as possessing altruistic and cheating tendencies’, where cheating means giving at least a bit less (or taking at least a bit more) than a friend would give or take from us.

Good people do attract more friends (though being a high-status good person helps)

Trivers goes on to explain that we have evolved to be subtle cheaters, with complex mechanisms for regulating bigger cheaters and also ‘too much’ altruism. He writes:

In gross cheating, the cheater fails to reciprocate at all, and the altruist suffers the costs of whatever altruism he has dispensed without any compensating benefit… clearly, selection will strongly favour prompt discrimination against the gross cheater. Subtle cheating, by contrast, involves reciprocating, but always attempting to give less than one was given, or more precisely, to give less than the partner would give if the situation were reversed.

The rewarding emotion of ‘liking’ someone is also a part of this psychological regulation system, and selection will favour liking those who are altruistic: good people do attract more friends (though being a high-status good person helps). But the issue is not whether we are cheaters or altruists, good or bad, but to what degree are we each of those things in different contexts and relationships.

P erhaps this seesaw between cheating and altruism, which settles to a midpoint of 50/50, explains why 50 per cent keeps coming up in research on friends and relationships. Recall that half of our friendships are non-reciprocal, half of our social network consists of ambivalent relationships, and – to dip into the adjacent field of lie detection – the average person detects lies right around 50 per cent of the time. We evolved to be able to detect enough lies to not be totally swindled, but not enough to wither under the harsh truths of (white-lie-free) social interactions. Likewise, we’ve evolved to detect some cheating behaviours in friends, but not enough to prohibit our ability to be friends with people at all. As the seesaw wobbles, so do our friendships.

Should this sound like a complicated business to you, Trivers agrees, and in fact speculates that the development of this system for regulating altruism among non-kin members is what made our brains grow so big in the Pleistocene. Many neuroscientists agree with his conclusion: humans are smart so that we can navigate friendship.

The psychologist Jan Yager, author of When Friendship Hurts (2002), found that 68 per cent of survey respondents had been betrayed by a friend. Who are these betrayers? At such high numbers, could ‘they’ be us?

We somehow expect friendships to be forever. Friendship break-ups challenge our vision of who we are

That scary thought leads me to ask: are we really striving to forgive small sins? To air our grievances before they accumulate and blow up our friendships? To make the effort to get together? To give others the benefit of the doubt? Are we giving what we can, or keeping score? Are we unfairly expecting friends to think and believe the exact same things we do? Are we really doing the best we can? Well, maybe that’s what most of our friends think they are doing, too. And if they aren’t being a good friend, or if they have drifted away from us, or we from them, maybe we can accept these common rifts, without giving into a guilt so overwhelming that it pushes us to slap a label on those we no longer want for friends: toxic.

When a friend breaks up with us, or disappears without explanation, it can be devastating. Even though the churning and pruning of social networks is common over time, we still somehow expect friendships to be forever. Friendship break-ups challenge our vision of who we are, especially if we’ve been intertwined with a friend for many years. Pulsing with hurt in the wake of a friend break-up, we hurl him or her into the ‘bad friends’ basket.

But, sometimes, we have to drop a friend to become ourselves. In Connecting in College (2016), the sociologist Janice McCabe argues that ending friendships in young adulthood is a way of advancing our identities. We construct our self-images and personalities against our friends, in both positive and negative ways.

As much as we need to take responsibility for being better friends and for our part in relationship conflict and break-ups, quite a few factors surrounding friendship are out of our control. Social network embeddedness, where you and another person have many friends in common, for instance, is a big challenge. Let’s say someone crosses a line, but you don’t want to disturb the group, so you don’t declare that you no longer think of him as a friend. You pull back from him, but not so much that it will spark a direct confrontation, whereby people would then be forced to invite only one of you, but not both, to events. Sometimes we are yoked to bad friends.

The forces that dictate whom we stay close to and whom we let go can be mysterious even to ourselves. Aren’t there people you like very much whom you haven’t contacted in a long time? And others you don’t connect with as well whom you see more often? The former group might be pencilling you into their ‘bad friend’ column right now.

Dealing with bad friends, getting dumped by them, and feeling disappointed with them is a stressful part of life, and it can harm your body and mind. Yet having no friends at all is a far worse fate. Imagine a child’s desperation for a playmate, a teenager’s deep longing for someone who ‘gets’ her, or an adult’s realisation that there is no one with whom he can share a failure or even a success. Loneliness is as painful as extreme thirst or hunger. John Cacioppo, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, has found associations between loneliness and depression, obesity, alcoholism, cardiovascular problems, sleep dysfunction, high blood pressure, the progression of Alzheimer’s disease, cynical world views and suicidal thoughts. But if you have friend problems, you have friends – and that means you’re pretty lucky.

Design and fashion

Sitting on the art

Given its intimacy with the body and deep play on form and function, furniture is a ripely ambiguous artform of its own

Emma Crichton Miller

Learning to be happier

In order to help improve my students’ mental health, I offered a course on the science of happiness. It worked – but why?

Consciousness and altered states

How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD

Last hours of an organ donor

In the liminal time when the brain is dead but organs are kept alive, there is an urgent tenderness to medical care

Ronald W Dworkin

Stories and literature

Do liberal arts liberate?

In Jack London’s novel, Martin Eden personifies debates still raging over the role and purpose of education in American life

History of ideas

Reimagining balance

In the Middle Ages, a new sense of balance fundamentally altered our understanding of nature and society

127 Friendship Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

When you have a good friendship topic, essay writing becomes as easy as it gets. We have some for you!

📝 Friendship Essay Structure

🏆 best friendship topic ideas & essay examples, 💡 good essay topics on friendship, 🎓 simple & easy friendship essay titles, 📌 most interesting friendship topics to write about, ❓ research questions about friendship.

Describing a friend, talking about your relationship and life experiences can be quite fun! So, take a look at our topics on friendship in the list below. Our experts have gathered numerous ideas that can be extremely helpful for you. And don’t forget to check our friendship essay examples via the links.

Writing a friendship essay is an excellent way to reflect on your relationships with other people, show your appreciation for your friends, and explore what friendship means to you. What you include in your paper is entirely up to you, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t structure it properly. Here is our advice on structuring an essay on friendship:

• Begin by selecting the right topic. It should be focused and creative so that you can earn a high mark. Think about what friendship means to you and write down your thoughts. Reflect on your relationship with your best friend and see if you can write an essay that incorporates these themes. If these steps didn’t help – don’t worry! Fortunately, there are many web resources that can help you choose. Browse samples of friendship essays online to see if there are any topics that interest you.
• Create a title that reflects your focus. Paper titles are important because they grasp the reader’s attention and make them want to read further. However, many people find it challenging to name their work, so you can search for friendship essay titles online if you need to.
• Once you get the first two steps right, you can start developing the structure of your essay. An outline is a great tool because it presents your ideas in a clear and concise manner and ensures that there are no gaps or irrelevant points. The most basic essay outline has three components: introduction, body, and conclusion. Type these out and move to the next step. Compose an introduction. Your introduction should include a hook, some background information, and a thesis. A friendship essay hook is the first sentence in the introduction, where you draw the reader’s attention. For instance, if you are creating an essay on value of friendship, include a brief description of a situation where your friends helped you or something else that comes to mind. A hook should make the reader want to read the rest of the essay. After the hook, include some background information on your chosen theme and write down a thesis. A thesis statement is the final sentence of the first paragraph that consists of your main argument.
• Write well-structured body paragraphs. Each body paragraph should start with one key point, which is then developed through examples, references to resources, or other content. Make sure that each of the key points relates to your thesis. It might be useful to write out all of your key points first before you write the main body of the paper. This will help you to see if any of them are irrelevant or need to be swapped to establish a logical sequence. If you are composing an essay on the importance of friendship, each point should show how a good friend can make life better and more enjoyable. End each paragraph with a concluding sentence that links it to the next part of the paper.
• Finally, compose a conclusion. A friendship essay conclusion should tie together all your points and show how they support your thesis. For this purpose, you should restate your thesis statement at the beginning of the final paragraph. This will offer your reader a nice, well-balanced closure, leaving a good impression of your work.

We hope that this post has assisted you in understanding the basic structure of a friendship paper. Don’t forget to browse our website for sample papers, essay titles, and other resources!

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• Friendship’s meaning around the world Globally it’s very ludicrous today for people to claim that they are in a friendship yet they do not even know the true meaning of friendship.
• Analysis of Internet Friendship Issues Despite the correlation that develops on the internet, the question of whether social media can facilitate and guarantee the establishment of a real friend has remained a key area of discussion.
• Social Media Communication and Friendship According to Maria Konnikova, social media have altered the authenticity of relationships: the world where virtual interactions are predominant is likely to change the next generation in terms of the ability to develop full social […]
• Childhood Friendship and Psychology Based on their research, they have founded a theory, according to which it is assumed that the children consider close relationship, appraisals, and sharing common interests as something very important to them and on the […]
• Faux Friendship and Social Networking The modern-day relationships have dissolved the meaning of the word friendship; as aromatic lovers refer to each other as friends, parents want their children to think of them as friends, teachers, clergymen and bosses have […]
• Friendship Type – Companionship Relationship A friendship is ideally not an obsession since the latter involves a craving for another person that might even lead to violence just to be in site of the other party.
• Friendship and Peer Networking in Middle Childhood Peer networking and friendship have a great impact on the development of a child and their overall well-being. Students in elementary need an opportunity to play and network with their peers.
• Friendship in “The Song of Roland” This phrase sums up Roland’s predicament in the book as it relates to his reluctance to sound the Oliphant horn. In the final horn-blowing episode, Roland is aggressively persuaded to blow the horn for Charlemagne’s […]
• True Friendship from Personal Perspective The perfect understanding of another person’s character and visions is one of the first characteristics of a true friendship. In such a way, true friendship is an inexhaustible source of positive emotions needed for everyone […]
• Trust Aspect of Friendship: Qualitative Study Given the previous research on preserving close communication and terminating it, the authors seek to examine the basics of productive friendship and the circumstances that contribute to the end of the interaction.
• Educator-Student Relationships: Friendship or Authority? Ford and Sassi present the view that the combination of authority and the establishment of interpersonal relations should become the way to improve the performance of learners.
• Friendship in the Film “The Breakfast Club” The main themes which can be identified in the storyline are crisis as a cause and catalyst of friendship, friendship and belonging, and disclosure and intimacy in friendship.
• Friendship Police Department Organizational Change The one that is going to challenge the efforts, which will be aimed at rectifying the situation, is the lack of trust that the employees have for the new leader who they expect to become […]
• Friendship in the Analects and Zhuangzi Texts The author of “The Analects of Confucius” uses the word friend in the first section of the text to emphasize the importance of friendship.
• How to Develop a Friendship: Strategies to Meet New Friends 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. A person should work hard to form healthy […]
• Is There Friendship Between Women? In conclusion, comparing my idea of women’s friendship discussed in my proposal to the theoretic materials of the course I came to a conclusion that strong friendship between women exists, and this is proved in […]
• Online Friendship Formationby in Mesch’s View The modern world tends to the situation when people develop the greatest empathy towards their online friends because it seems that the ratio and the deepness of these relationships can be controlled; written and posted […]
• Canadian-American Diefenbaker-Eisenhower Friendship In particular, the paper investigates the Mandatory Oil Import Program and the exemption of Canada from this initiative as well as the historical treaty that was officially appended by the two leaders in regard to […]
• Friendship from a Sociological Perspective For example Brazilians studying in Europe and United States were met with the stereotypes that Brazilians are warm people and are easy to establish friendships.
• Friendship Influencing Decisions When on Duty The main stakeholders are the local community, the judge, and the offenders. The right of the society is to receive objective and impartial treatment of its members.
• Friendship: To Stay or to Leave Each member of the group found out who really is a friend and who is not. This implies that the level of trust is high between Eddie and Vic.
• “Understanding Others, and Individual Differences in Friendship Interaction in Young Children”: Article Analysis The aspect of socio-cognitive abilities of small children in the process of interaction was disclosed with the help of psychological theories.
• Friendship: Sociological Term Review But one is not aware of that type of friendship; it is necessary to study it. Friendship is a matter of consciousness; love is absolutely unconscious.
• The Significance of Friendship in Yeonam The paper examines the depth and extent to which Yeonam was ready to go and if he was bound by the norms of the human friendship and association of his era.
• Cicero and Plutarch’s Views on Friendship He believed that befriending a man for sensual pleasures is the ideal of brute beasts; that is weak and uncertain with caprice as its foundation than wisdom. It is this that makes such carelessness in […]
• Friendship: The Meaning and Relevance Although the basic definition of a friendship falls under the category of somebody whom we feel a level of affection and trust for or perhaps a favored companion, the truth of the matter is that […]
• “Is True Friendship Dying Away?” and “The Price We Pay” Then Purpose of the essay is to depict the way social media such as Facebook and Twitter have influenced the lifestyles of every person in the world.
• Fate of Friendship and Contemporary Ethics Is friendship possible in the modern world dominated by pragmatism and will it exist in the future? For instance, Cicero takes the point of view of the social entity, in other words, he defines friendship […]
• Feminism and Modern Friendship While criticizing these individuals, Marilyn asserts that the omission of sex and gender implies that these individuals wanted to affirm that social attachment such as societies, families, and nationalities contribute to identity rather than sex […]
• Creating a Friendship Culture This family will ensure every church member and youth is part of the youth ministry. I will always help every newcomer in the ministry.
• Friendship is in Everyone’s Life Though, different books were written in different times, the descriptions of a friendship have the same essence and estimate that one cannot be completely satisfied with his/her life if one does not have a friend.
• Intimacy, Love and Friendship and how they translate to employability The use of love and its conventions in the NAB campaigns is an illustration of how love as a concept can be used to translate to employability.
• Intimacy, Love and Friendship In the past, women in Australia led a life characterized by a lot of hardships because of the harsh traditions that they were supposed to follow.
• Contemporary Understanding of Intimacy and Friendship The Social Network film discusses how Facebook was developed and the challenges of developing the giant social site. Many people are of the view that Facebook has the effect of enslaving them by making their […]
• Interpretation of Friendship among Confucian and Neo-Confucian writers In his article “The Fifth Relationship; Dangerous Friendships in the Confucian Context”, Norman Kutcher explores the friendship as outlined under the Confucian system. The above writers have different interpretations of friendship of the under the […]
• Why International Students Find It Hard to Make Friends On the other hand, in societies that promote a high power distance, less powerful individuals accept their position in the chain of command and acknowledge the strengths of their superiors in the hierarchy.
• Gender Stereotyping and Friendship: Women Relationships The most interesting about this article is its ending which states that” the core of a friendship has to have more in-person interactions and experience”.
• The Impact of Friendship in the Epic of Gilgamesh The elusive coalition between Enkidu and Gilgamesh, their fateful destinies and eventual epiphanies broaden the societal apprehension of the elements/value of friendship as expounded in the next discussion.
• Woman Intimacy and Friendship with the Appearance of Social Media The anonymity provided by the social media makes this medium very appealing to both women and men as they are able to “reconstruct” themselves to a level they deem “cool” enough to garner more desired […]
• Aristotle’s Ideas on Civic Relationships: Happiness, the Virtues, Deliberation, Justice, and Friendship On building trust at work, employers are required to give minimum supervision to the employees in an effort to make the latter feel a sense of belonging and responsibility.
• Gender Role Development and Friendship As far as the conflict goes, the boy’s main problem is that he is unwilling to change his behavior towards a socially accepted one under the pretext that girls are more beautiful and, therefore, it […]
• Article Study on the Friendship Concept In the critical review article, the views of Norman Kutcher on the formation of friendships are discussed in detail. In this article, the views of other scholars are discussed in order to strengthen the works […]
• Henry Thoreau: The Concept of the Friendship Not every person is able to understand the essence of nature, its uniqueness, and importance. To my mind, his close connection to nature and a kind of isolation from people helped him to understand deeper […]
• Why Honesty Is Important In A Friendship
• The Truth and Friendship in the Movie Camelot
• A Discussion About the Value of Friendship as Portrayed in Damon and Pythias
• What Is the Meaning of True Friendship
• A Literary Analysis of Friendship in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Factors Contributing to the Ups and Downs of Friendship in Knowles’ A Separate Peace
• Friendship and Love in the Little Prince
• Confidantes, Marriage, and Friendship in Pride and Prejudice
• What Makes A Successful Friendship
• Understanding Friendship Through The Staircase Model
• An Analysis of Friendship and Rejection in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
• A Discussion on the Different Types of Friendship
• An Analysis of Friendship in Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• A Literary Analysis of Friendship in a Separate Peace by John Knowles
• An Analysis of the Concept of Friendship in A Separate Piece by John Knowles
• A Separate Peace and Of Mice and Men – Real Friendship
• The Theme of True Friendship in the Book of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• The Value of Friendship in Great Expectations
• What Makes A Good Friendship
• The Theme of Friendship in Separate Ways by Higuchi Ichiyo and Uncanny Stories by SongLing
• Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism
• The Waltz Of Sociability : Intimacy, Dislocation And Friendship
• The True Meaning of the Word Friendship
• A Description of Impartiality, Beneficence and Friendship According to Lawrence Blum
• Aristotle ‘s Views On Friendship
• Friendship and Courage in The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• An Analysis of Friendship and Loyalty in the Film The Deer Hunter
• Turning Away from True Friendship
• Different Types of Friendship and The Need for Friends
• An Analysis of the Dangers of Friendship
• The Victorian Female Friendship and Homosexual References in Emily Dickinson’s Work
• What Is Friendship And How Is God Man ‘s Best Friend?
• The Venerable Kassapa Thera: A Living Symbol of Dedication, Courage, Altruism and Intimate Friendship
• “The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds” by Michael Lewis
• Building from Happiness to Friendship
• What Do You Think Steinbeck Says About the Theme of Friendship in of Mice and Men
• Distributive Justice and the Problem of Friendship
• How Does Shakespeare Demonstrate That Love and Friendship Can Overcome Greed in the Merchant of Venice?
• Does Borrowing Money From Friends Harm Friendship?
• Can Friendship Be Defined by Any Scientific Criteria?
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• Does Campus Diversity Promote Friendship Diversity?
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• Should Becoming Friends With Benefits Ruin Your Friendship?
• How Does the Nature of Children’s Friendship Change With Age?
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• What Are Friends for and How Can a Friendship Be Tested?
• How Does the Theme of Loneliness Affect the Friendship and Relationships in “Of Mice and Men”?
• What Are the Elements That Build a Strong Friendship?
• How Does Friendship Help Students Succeed in the University?
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• What Was Aristotle’s Thought on Friendship?
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• Can Everything Be Bought for Money?
• How Do Gamers Take the Gaming Experience, Elements Such as Friendships Outside the Game Context?
• Do Friends Generally Have Similar Educational Interests?
• What Individual and Country-Level Factors Might Interact With Friendship Importance to Predict Health and Well-Being?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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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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WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Helping writers become bestselling authors

Friends as Enemies

April 19, 2016 by BECCA PUGLISI

One thing that Angela and I discovered time and again as we put the Rural and Urban Setting Thesaurus books together is just how influential the setting is on a story. Setting has its collective fingers in a lot of pies: building the mood, characterizing the story’s cast, steering the plot, evoking mood, providing conflict…and that’s just a few things it can do. In our books, we try to cover as much of this detail as possible so you can write richer stories. Each entry has not only the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures a character might experience, but other elements too.

Here’s one area that keeps drawing my attention:

(I pulled this tidbit from  One Stop For Writers , where all the settings for both books can also be found. Subscribers can access the entries in their entirety while registered users can see a sampling .)

As a writer, I’m constantly looking for sources of conflict for my stories. This is one of the reasons we included this field, because people are our greatest resource when it comes to conflict. So looking at the kinds of people typically found in a given setting can give you an idea for who might cause trouble for your hero.

But as I was brainstorming for this field, one thought kept coming back to me: But what about the friends ?

I’m not talking about the friends that your character thinks are friends but end up stabbing her in the back. I’m talking about real friends who cause real trouble, often unintentionally.

As we know, friends, family, and allies can cause conflict, too. And because of their close connection with the main character, trouble from a friend inherently equates to elevated emotions for the hero. Plus, friends are so accessible; you won’t typically have to orchestrate a meeting in order to make the sparks fly because the friends are already there.

So it makes sense to use those closest to the hero to add conflict. But what kind of trouble can a true friend cause? Here are a few possibilities:

Opposing Goals:   Throughout your story, your hero should have something he’s trying to achieve. But at the scene level, he should also have goals—smaller micro-goals that move him toward getting what he wants overall. Conflict comes in the form of people, forces, things, etc. that block the character from getting what he wants. Oftentimes this comes in the form of the antagonist, who is actively working against the character. But what if the character with the opposing goal is his friend? Fireworks, that’s what happens, between the hero and the person he thought was on his side.

Shared Goals: Another form of conflict comes when two characters want the same thing. Again, the typical scenario is the character and the antagonist or a rival going after the same objective—getting the boy/girl, winning the game/court case/contest, getting a spot on the team, etc. But it gets a lot more complicated when the person competing with the character is a trusted ally.

Clashing Traits:  Every person is different, and though our friends are often somewhat similar to us, they’re not carbon copies. The same is true with characters and their cronies. Each member of the cast has traits, both positive and negative, that don’t go well together. Imagine a responsible and rule-following hero combined with a reckless friend. A controlling hero and a rebellious friend. Hard-working vs. lazy. Sensitive vs. tactless. Friends with opposing traits are going to get on each others nerves. Remember this in the planning stages of your story and you’ll end up with built-in conflict that’s easy to access.

Moral Arguments: Though friends aren’t going to agree on everything, every person has certain moral lines they’re not willing to cross. And though they know that other people don’t necessarily share their values, they don’t like them to cross those lines, either. While friends are willing to compromise on certain things, it’s much harder for them to give ground when it comes to questions of right and wrong. Knowing what values your character holds dear can help you use those values against him  when conflict is necessary.

Envy :   No matter how gifted, successful, good-looking, or popular a person is, there’s always someone who’s MORE gifted, BETTER looking, etc. Envy is an ugly emotion, beginning with negative thoughts that often turn to negative behaviors. When envy manifests between friends, it becomes much more complex, with higher stakes.

Insecurities: Every character has insecurities that make them doubt themselves and skew their view of the world and others. These insecurities can lead to poor decisions that impact the people around them. For instance, someone who’s insecure about his popularity may crack jokes at a friend’s expense if it will get him a few laughs. A girl who is insecure about her looks might latch on to anyone who pays her attention—even if that person is her best friend’s ex. If you’re looking for conflict between friends, figure out what insecurities exist and see what you can do to manipulate them.

Weak Moments : Let’s face it: no one is perfect. No matter how strong a friendship is, every person has selfish moments where they just want to do what they want to do no matter how it might affect others. What might that look like? Canceling plans with a friend when a better opportunity comes along. Not standing up for someone. Kissing a friend’s sister. Poor decisions are easy to justify, and our characters might convince themselves that these choices are no big deal. But weak moments often lead to huge fallout, making for great conflict.

Growing apart : It’s an unfortunate truth of friendship, but sometimes people just grow apart. Interests change, new groups are joined, people move on from a relationship that is holding them back in other areas or is unhealthy in some way.  This is natural, but it doesn’t happen all at once. Before people have fully moved on, there’s often a long process full of awkward moments and uncomfortable emotions like confusion, self-doubt, anger, hurt, and bitterness. This leads to lots of potential conflict as friends try to figure out what’s happening and come to grips with the new dynamic.

The list of conflict between friends could probably go on and on, but these are a few of the ways that true friends can cause problems for your main character. Do you have any to add? Please share them in the comments!

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers —a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

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Reader Interactions

April 20, 2016 at 8:53 am

Interesting post, Becca. Will see what it produces in my WIP. Thanks.

April 21, 2016 at 8:48 am

Good luck, Carol!

April 19, 2016 at 8:13 pm

Great entry!! It doesn’t have to be a big rift, just enough to form a crack.

April 21, 2016 at 8:49 am

Exactly! Conflict doesn’t have to be explosions and fireworks. It can be subtle and quiet and still accomplish its purpose :).

April 19, 2016 at 9:47 am

While reading this post, immediately thought of Hazel and Bigwig (Watership Down), Bobby and Mark (Pendragon), Harry and Everyone Else (Harry Potter).

April 19, 2016 at 11:33 am

Yes, I thought of Ron and Harry in the Envy section. And Hazel and Bigwig are a great example of conflict among friends—even Hazel and Fiver. Love that book.

[…] was reading this article on conflicts you can use in your books. And there was one paragraph that stood out to […]

[…] Friends as Enemies by Becca Puglisi on Writer’s Helping Writer’s […]

[…] https://writershelpingwriters.net/2016/04/friends-as-enemies/ […]

[…] your story. Joyce Scarbrough shows how to bring your characters to life, Becca Puglisi discusses friends as enemies, K.M. Weiland tells you everything you need to know about 3rd person, Marcy Kennedy explores using […]

[…] Friends as Enemies by Becca Puglisi on Writer’s Helping Writer’s […]

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How to Develop Empathy for Someone Who Annoys You

• Rebecca Knight

Try to understand the person’s perspective.

When someone you work with annoys you, it’s tempting to avoid the person as much as possible. But this often makes the situation worse. You’re better off fostering some empathy. Start by generating theories that might explain why your colleague says what he says, thinks what he thinks, and acts the way he acts. The goal here is to understand this person’s perspective. Next, find something in your colleague to care about. Perhaps you both have children the same age. Or maybe your colleague lives in a neighboring town. Use those connections to strike up a conversation and get to know him on a personal level.

When someone you work with annoys you, it’s tempting to avoid the person as much as possible. But this isn’t always feasible and often only makes the situation worse. You’re better off cultivating some empathy. How can you do that with a colleague who rubs you the wrong way? How can you foster curiosity instead of animosity?

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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3 Reasons Your Friends Annoy You (and What to Do About It)

If you want the people you care about to change, help them..

Posted July 12, 2015 | Reviewed by Devon Frye

Most of us feel upset or bothered by how someone has treated us at some point, especially when that person is a friend or family member. In almost all cases, there are three probable reasons for another person's objectionable or bothersome behavior:

1. A lack of awareness.

Suppose you have a friend who is constantly late or often changes plans at the last moment. In many cases, the reason for your friend's annoying lateness could be nothing more than a lack of awareness that you find this kind of behavior frustrating.

By assertively expressing your feelings, you would presumably establish awareness in your friend that you find this behavior objectionable. Now, if the person is a real friend—someone truly invested in your comfort and contentment in the relationship—he or she will be glad to make a behavioral adjustment to enhance your happiness in the friendship . The solution for the lack-of-awareness problem is to simply inform and express. It's possible that the person simply has no idea you find the behavior distressing. Assertively stating your objection(s) and how you really feel about it (them) is often curative and the relationship can hopefully become more mutually satisfying.

2. A lack of concern.

Once in a while, however, you might find that you are dealing with a person who really doesn't care about your happiness in a relationship. The other person might say he or she will change, but really doesn't. Usually, this means you are relating to someone who is not as invested in making the relationship work as you are. In these cases, the reason for the bothersome behavior is usually a lack of genuine concern for your feelings and for what might be good for you.

When you discover that such a "friend" refuses to change troublesome behavior, you can redefine your relationship as an unequally important one. Re-calibrate it in your mind as less intimate and more superficial and lower the bar of your expectations, as you accept that this person is less invested in the friendship than you are.

3. A legitimate inability to do things differently.

In some cases, another person's objectionable behavior can be explained by a literal lack of ability to act differently. He or she might lack the skills necessary for considerate and reciprocally rewarding interaction. For example, he or she might have a genetically based, neurocognitive condition like autism , or struggle with ADHD , OCD complications, or some other barrier that disrupts their "flow" and makes simple activities, like being on time, very challenging.

On these occasions, people relate to us in bothersome, annoying, and objectionable ways because they simply have a genuine lack of ability due to a social or developmental problem that stems from their DNA and brain activity. The irksome behavior is not a purposeful decision to aggravate you. Nevertheless, as with the lack-of-concern cause, changing expectations—and acceptance of their condition—is necessary for the friendship to work.

Some socially or interpersonally challenged people can benefit from helpful, constructive input and feedback. If they are capable of learning new social routines—even if they don't fully understand emotionally why they need to change—they can compensate for a lack of "social intelligence " through mental horsepower.

If people with whom you're in a relationship consistently upset you because of how they treat you or relate to you, it's important to establish the root cause of their behavior: Is it a lack of awareness about how you feel, a lack of concern for your feelings and happiness, or a valid lack of ability to relate differently?

In any case, it's important to express your observations and feelings in a responsibly assertive way, and to be prepared to lower your expectations and/or re-calibrate the depth of mutual affection and intimacy in the relationship.

Remember: Think well, act well, feel well, be well!

Copyright Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D.

Clifford N. Lazarus, Ph.D. , is Clinical Director of The Lazarus Institute.

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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.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

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 Be Less Annoying Towards Friends

Last Updated: March 17, 2024

This article was co-authored by Sheila A. Anderson . Sheila A. Anderson is a Certified Image Consultant, International Branding Icon, and the Founder of Image Power Play, an impression management and personal branding company. With over three decades of experience, she specializes in empowering corporate professionals to raise their personal image to meet the value of their brand. Sheila is a Certified Image Consultant with The Image Resource Network and a Certified Universal Style Consultant with The Universal Style International. Sheila is a member of the C-Suite Network Advisors and the author of the book, I.C.U., The Comprehensive Guide to Breathing Life Back Into Your Personal Brand. This article has been viewed 199,550 times.

It's natural for everyone to feel that they are outcasted by peers and/or friends. Sometimes, people may act this way because they feel annoyed by the way someone treats them, especially inside a friend group. There are many factors, small and large, that causes others to label your actions as irritating. If you feel like you may be annoying to your friends, you can improve on certain areas to be more comfortable with your peers, and with yourself too.

Respecting Boundaries

• Try saying "You seem down. What would help you feel better right now?"
• Listen when they tell you what they want. For example, if they say "I want to be alone," then leave them alone for a while.

Keeping a Healthy Attitude

• If it's someone else's turn, avoid trying to turn things back to you. You'd feel upset if someone did that to you, so don't do that to your friend. Let things focus on them. You can take your turn once their turn is over.
• Try to have a list of interesting questions on hand that you can ask to get to know other people on a deeper level.

• Of course, you can still bring up things about your life. Just wait a bit if it seems like a bad time.

• Remember—being perfect isn't relatable. We all make mistakes or mess up once in awhile. Handling yourself maturely makes you look more human and relatable, thus increasing your charisma.

Skipping Bad Habits

• It's okay to be fidgety if that's the way you are. Find a way to fidget quietly without distracting others.
• Redirect your fidgeting if someone says it's bothering them.

• Don't forward chain mail, even if it's warning about something scary or suggesting you could get paid. This type of stuff is always fake and it can annoy people.
• Avoid sending more than 2 messages in a row if someone isn't responding. Give them time to answer you. It may be that they're busy right now and will be able to get to you later.

Speaking Politely

• Accidents happen. If you interrupt someone, say "I'm sorry. What were you saying?" Then listen closely.

• When in doubt, focus on being interested, not interesting. People love it when you listen to them.

• If you do need to correct someone, do it gently and try to help them save face.

• Avoid telling people that their life experiences are wrong.

Tip: Of course, if someone says something truly awful (such as a bullying or discriminatory comment), you might choose to disagree out loud to let them know that it's out of line.

• If someone isn't interested, it usually doesn't mean anything bad about you. It just means that this isn't the right topic right now. Try asking about something that they're interested in.

• If you aren't sure what would make them happy, try saying "we can talk about it or not talk about it if you'd like."

Become a Diplomatic Communicator with this Expert Series

Expert Q&A

• Don't point out your friend's flaws, like bad eyesight, hearing, or memory. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Don't copy the things your friend does. This is beyond annoying. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
• Try not to pay attention to your friends a lot-if you don't then they will get more curious and stick with you. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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About This Article

If you’ve been getting on your friends’ nerves lately, make sure you’re respecting their boundaries. When a friend says “no” or “stop,” respect their wishes and stop whatever you’re doing. This goes for anything from asking for too many favors to invading their personal space. If a friend is going through a hard time, ask what you can do to help. That might mean giving them space, letting them vent, or helping them get a difficult task done. If they share something with you in confidence, don’t talk about it behind their back. And remember, it’s okay for your friends to want privacy. Mind your own business and don’t pry if they aren’t comfortable sharing something with you. Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Sep 11, 2016

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What makes people annoying?

‘Annoyance is probably the most widely experienced and least studied of all human emotions,’ say the experts – here’s what we know, and how to deal

I couldn’t stand her.

I didn’t actually know her. My friends had been sharing her videos about politics and current events. Her opinions weren’t that different from my own. But something about her felt insincere. Smug. Less interested in politics and current events and more in presenting herself. Her shtick felt both irritating and uncomfortably familiar.

I scrolled back through her videos, to ones that had been posted years ago. There was that familiar feeling again: they were all of her singing.

Of course. She was a theater kid.

A performer, a self-promoter, talented – but painfully aware of it. Everybody finds theater kids annoying: their self-seriousness, their loudness, their incessant recitals of Rent. Somewhere, right now, a group of them are systematically ruining someone’s night at Denny’s.

Yet, I felt guilty for being annoyed. Because I’m a theater kid, too. I always have been. I was performing made-up songs and monologues for my friends in preschool. I have a BFA in drama. I’ve considered getting an Our Town-inspired tattoo.

When I saw that girl’s videos, I thought of my most embarrassing self. The constant “too loud/excessive talking” marks on my report cards; the exasperated faces when I finally got the karaoke mic; the constant grandstanding on Twitter in my 20s. Theater kids live at the nexus of painfully sincere and desperately performative.

“You don’t like in other people what you don’t like in yourself,” someone once told me. I wondered if it’s as simple as that.

What is annoyance?

“Annoyance is probably the most widely experienced and least studied of all human emotions,” wrote Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman in their 2010 book, Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us. “There is no Department of Annoying Studies or annoyingologists.” Many psychologists consider it a subset of anger, rather than a pure emotion in itself, and thus harder to study.

“Emotions are sometimes plotted on a chart,” Palca and Lichtman write, “with positive/negative on one axis and arousal/calm on the other.” This method of charting emotions is often called the valence-arousal model. While the extremes are easy to see – such as excitement, a positive feeling with high arousal, or depression, a negative state often with low arousal – where does something less dramatic like annoyance fit in?

MC Flux, a psychologist, neuroscientist and science communicator from the University of Colorado, Boulder, describes annoyance as “moderately negative, and moderate arousal”. Ultimately, he believes, humans want to “maintain homeostasis”, to feel as if they are safe, stable and in control. Emotions, particularly high-arousal ones, often lead to actions that we hope will get us there.

Similarly, annoyance serves a purpose, says Flux: “It’s basically a flag, saying: ‘Something is wrong, and I should probably do something about it.’”

Many annoying things are designed that way. A baby cries because it needs attention. Ambulance sirens need to be loud and obnoxious so people will get out of the way. “The job of an EMS driver … is to overcome everyone’s ability to ignore things,” Palca and Lichtman write.

“A lot of our emotions evolved to push us in the direction of social cohesion,” says Flux.

Yet, while we can pick up a crying baby or pull over when we hear a siren, we can’t do much about other people’s behavior, at least not without causing some social discomfort. Perhaps this is why it stings when we see our annoying qualities in others.

“When you see a little bit of yourself in something,” Flux says, “you recognize it more and you feel like you have more ability to intervene.”

I wish I could tell social media theater kids that not everyone needs to hear their opinions all the time, but I can’t. All I can do is try to remember that myself.

What makes something annoying?

Of course, not all annoying people act like us. Sometimes a behavior is annoying because we don’t understand it.

In Annoying, Palca and Lichtman quote Michael Cunningham, then a communications professor and researcher at the University of Louisville, who describes annoying acts as “social allergens”. These don’t bother us so much at first, but build up over time. He says most fall into one of four categories: uncouth habits, inconsiderate acts, intrusive behaviors and “norm violations”.

The first three categories are all about roughly the same thing: crossed boundaries. Someone’s actions are intruding on our time, personal space or sense of propriety. Yet his final category may be the most important.

“These are intentional behaviors that are not aimed at you personally, but violate some standard that you have,” Cunningham is quoted as saying.

Norms and values dictate our lives, and show us what to expect. These can vary widely, though. In a recent conversation with a friend, I discussed someone I thought was a bit conceited.

“Don’t you hate when people go on and on about all the things they’ve done?” I asked her.

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She disagreed. She figured people like that were just being honest, and taking pride in their accomplishments. I was stunned. Didn’t everyone believe that modesty was the ultimate virtue, like my Irish-Catholic father and raised-in-Minnesota mother had taught me? Apparently not.

There are a million different cultures and viewpoints. Obviously, some will conflict. I could go on any social media app and see something completely against my beliefs: “Women should always be subservient to men,” say, or “The Phantom of the Opera is a great musical.”

“We are a culture that takes annoyance seriously,” says Flux. In the US, we pride ourselves upon rebelling and speaking out. It’s led to some great advances, but fundamentally, we may not be great at picking our battles.

It’s easier to be annoyed about a minor irritant (someone’s showy videos about politics) than it is to be upset about a major issue (the limits of what I can do politically).

“‘If you see something, say something’ – that is the epitome of our culture! We say something about everything,” says Flux. “Annoyance robs us of our energy and our ability to really make a difference … We have to figure out how to re-balance our responses.”

Is it possible to be less annoying – or annoyed?

I know I can be annoying. Sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s possible to have secondhand embarrassment for myself. I also know that I can be easily annoyed.

Pam Shaffer, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, suggests getting “curious about the other person’s experience”. If someone is doing something that violates our norms or boundaries, there’s almost always a reason for it. Trying to imagine what is driving their behavior can make us feel less annoyed.

While it’s not necessarily a positive emotion, curiosity “can defray a negative emotion”, Shaffer says.

So we shift the question from “Ugh, why would anyone do that?” to “Huh, why would anyone do that?”

“Often the behavior I find most annoying is attached to some deep-seated insecurity,” says Rachel Vorona-Cote, author of Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today. What annoys her is people who lack awareness of their own actions. “It’s uncomfortable to bear witness to people who don’t have any idea of the effect they have on others.”

Monitoring our own behavior, then, and being conscious of what we are insecure about, might make us less likely to irritate others. This can be tricky, though, especially for the many people who struggle to interpret social cues, or for those who live in a culture different from the one they were raised in.

And how much looking inward is too much? The cruel irony is that being obsessed with how one is coming across can make one more annoying. I spent my teens and 20s as the friend who apologized constantly. It was exhausting, both for me and for others.

Flux suggests that it’s not helpful to think about how to be less annoying. “Everyone’s going to find you annoying in some way,” he says. A more important question might be: “How do we learn to better manage things that annoy us?”

“I think sometimes we can take too much of a confrontation-heavy approach to how we interact,” says Flux. Instead, we could try what he calls “prosocial behaviors” – actions that are designed to build connections with others, like teamwork, positive reinforcement or making ourselves useful.

Funnily enough, my old theater kid days provide a good example of how to do that.

At my arts high school, eligible theater students auditioned for every play. If we weren’t cast, we would help build sets, make costumes, run lights and assist the stage manager.

It gave us perspective. We worked with different people, learned why they were the way they were. If we found someone annoying, too bad – we still had to work together. When someone is showing you how to use a miter saw, you have to stop singing Defying Gravity and actually listen, lest you lose a finger.

Rather than focusing on oneself, working together and getting curious are good ways to be less annoying, and less annoyed. Because, as a theater kid might say : “Together, we’re unlimited.”

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These messages will get the point across.

Your friend stood you up for the third time in three weeks; your cousin is refusing to get vaccinated even though Grandma is coming to her wedding; and then there’s that co-worker that won’t stop rolling his eyes whenever your cat creeps across your laptop during Zoom meetings. An arsenal of texts to send when you’re mad at someone can come in handy when their snide remark about your fourth cup of coffee this morning was the last straw.

“It’s not about being mean or getting back at someone,” says Jordyn, 26, who tells Bustle that they’ve sent their fair share of pissed off texts . “Sometimes, I just have to do what my idol tells me to and ‘ let it go .’” Letting off some steam via Messenger can look like anything from a long, drawn-out explanation of why you’re fuming to a short, simple, and not-so-sweet emoji .

Communicating your anger through text is as much an art form as it is an emotional expression. “There’s a fine line between ‘I’d like to initiate the fight of the century’ and ‘Hey, man, I’m upset that you did that crappy thing,’” Jordyn says. If you’re looking for texts that signal you’re upset without inviting an all-out argument, check out these 11 texts to send when you’re mad.

Say anything, but add periods.

Every time your mom texts you, you’re convinced that you’ve done something wrong. Why? Because she uses actual punctuation in her texts, blissfully unaware that saying, “Call me back when you can!” is very different than saying “Call me back when you can.” (Even science says so .) Toss more periods into your texts when your colleague won’t stop hogging the office espresso machine, and they’ll get the message.

“Wow, thanks for letting me know what your priorities are.”

“Mostly, I reserve this one for transphobic relatives who text to tell me how difficult it is for them to use my pronouns,” says Sara, 31. “But I feel like it can also help when your bestie keeps posting TikToks with everyone but you (definitely not based on experience).”

Even caps-locking your phone doesn’t scream as loudly as a single “k.” It’s quick, efficient, and very clear.

“No problem.”

Except, it’s a really big problem. Don’t worry. The period will let them know.

“I’d rather not.”

“It’s a lot less chipper than ‘Aw, I need to take a rain check!’” says Dawn, 29. “And it’s a two-for-one — you’re declining their invitation and cluing them in that you’re pissed at them.”

Leave off the “I love you.”

Sometimes, it’s about what you’re not saying. “I always say ‘I love you’ to my close friends in longer texts,” Jordyn says. “But if something doesn’t feel right — aka they’ve really hurt me somehow — I’ll leave it out.” That’s definitely a conversation-starter.

[Insert passive aggressive emoji here]

The thumbs-up emoji might become your new best friend when your co-worker asks you to cover their shift at the last minute — again . You’ll do it, but only because the money is decent, not because you like them. Let them know with a thumbs-up followed by literally nothing else. If you’ve got an iPhone, make it even worse (or better) with a thumbs-up tapback, rather than actually sending the emoji.

“The dishes are almost as messy as your love life. Please fix.”

When your roommate hasn’t done their dishes in centuries and you’ve had enough, you might consider getting a little sassy with your texts. And when the mold is starting to build up, is anything really off limits?

“Sitting through the last season of Glee would be less annoying.”

When you really need to leave them with no question of how you’re feeling about hanging out with them, whip out a telling TV reference. Instead of a simple “Nah, I’m busy tonight,” Ryan Murphy can tell them how it really is.

“Omg!!! That’s amazing!!!!”

“I’m a pretty expressive person, but it still freaks my friends out when I start putting five thousand exclamation points with short sentences,” Dawn tells Bustle. “They realized before I did that it’s something I do when I’m pissed and trying to (unsuccessfully) hide it... But now I can deploy the exclamation points on purpose.”

“In this essay, I will...”

Remember when a 375-word essay felt impossibly long in high school? It’s not long enough when you’re this ticked off — so get typing. Send it all in one block of text for bonus rage points.

This article was originally published on Aug. 10, 2021

How to Describe a Best Friend in Writing (100+ Examples & Words)

From their quirky traits to unforgettable moments, let’s unpack how to write about your best friend.

Here is how to describe a best friend in writing:

Describe a best friend in writing by highlighting their personality, shared memories, and impact on your life. Use vivid examples and emotional resonance to convey the depth of your bond.

This guide offers insightful tips and over 100 examples to help you learn how to describe your best friend.

Types of Best Friends

Table of Contents

Best friends come in various forms, each unique yet profoundly impactful in our lives.

• There’s the Adventurous Pal , always ready for the next thrill.
• The Listener , who offers an empathetic ear.
• The Wisdom Giver , full of insightful advice.
• The Comedy Genius , who can make you laugh in any situation.
• The Loyal Confidant , who stands by you through thick and thin.

Recognizing the type of best friend you’re describing is the first step in crafting a genuine portrayal.

13 Best Ways to Describe a Best Friend

Here are 13 ways that I’ve found to describe a best friend in writing.

1. Describe Their Personality

Delving into your best friend’s personality traits offers a foundational layer to your description.

It’s about capturing their essence, what makes them uniquely them—their kindness, their fiery spirit, or perhaps their unwavering optimism.

Consider how their personality has influenced your life and the lives of others around them.

• My best friend is the epitome of resilience, bouncing back from setbacks with a smile.
• Her infectious laughter and boundless energy light up the darkest rooms.
• He’s the kind of person who looks for the silver lining in every cloud.
• She’s a beacon of kindness, always there to lend a hand.
• His wisdom belies his age, offering perspectives that are both refreshing and profound.

2. Highlight Their Physical Appearance

While it’s the inner qualities that often define our deepest connections, describing your best friend’s physical appearance can add a rich, visual layer to your portrayal.

Talk about their smile, the way their eyes light up with excitement, or the comforting warmth of their embrace.

• With her fiery red hair and sparkling green eyes, she stands out in any crowd.
• He has a smile that could disarm the coldest hearts, and it’s absolutely infectious.
• Her style is a reflection of her vibrant personality, always colorful and full of life.
• The gentle strength in his hands is a testament to the battles he’s faced and overcome.
• When she laughs, her whole face lights up, from the crinkles in her eyes to the dimples in her cheeks.

3. Reflect on Shared Memories

Shared memories are the cornerstone of any friendship, especially the best ones.

Describe the adventures you’ve embarked on, the challenges you’ve faced together, and the milestones you’ve celebrated.

These stories not only bring your friend to life on the page but also highlight the depth of your bond.

• Remembering the time we got lost on a road trip, only to find the most beautiful hidden lake.
• The nights spent talking until the sun came up, solving the world’s problems in our little bubble.
• Celebrating each other’s successes, whether it be graduations, promotions, or personal achievements, has always been our tradition.
• Facing hardships together, from family issues to personal setbacks, has only strengthened our bond.
• The spontaneous dance parties in our living rooms have been the highlight of my toughest days.

4. Discuss Their Impact on Your Life

Bolded H3: Influence and Impact

A best friend’s influence on your life is profound and multifaceted.

Describe how they’ve shaped your perspectives, encouraged your dreams, and stood by you during your lowest points.

It’s their presence in your life that has made all the difference.

• She’s the reason I dared to chase my dreams, always believing in me even when I didn’t.
• His unwavering support during my darkest days showed me the true meaning of friendship.
• Her wisdom has guided me through life’s toughest decisions, always offering a new angle to consider.
• The confidence I’ve found in myself is a direct reflection of his endless encouragement and faith.
• Learning to laugh at myself and embrace life’s quirks has been her greatest gift to me.

5. Emphasize Their Unique Skills and Talents

Every best friend has a set of unique skills and talents that make them stand out.

Describe these abilities, whether it’s their artistic flair, athletic prowess, or unmatched problem-solving skills.

Highlighting these traits showcases their individuality and the various ways they express themselves.

• Her ability to create art from ordinary objects is nothing short of magical.
• His knack for solving complex math problems as if they’re simple puzzles always amazes me.
• The way she can calm any situation with just a few words is a rare and invaluable talent.
• Watching him on the soccer field, skillfully maneuvering past opponents, is a sight to behold.
• Her musical talent, especially when she plays the piano, fills the room with an indescribable warmth.

6. Describe Their Sense of Humor

A best friend’s sense of humor can be a source of endless joy and comfort, turning even the bleakest days bright.

Describe the nuances of their humor, whether it’s witty puns, sarcastic remarks, or goofy antics, and how it resonates with you.

• The way she delivers a punchline with a perfectly straight face is both hilarious and endearing.
• His sarcastic comments on the mundane aspects of life have me in stitches every time.
• Her ability to find humor in the most unexpected places is a gift that keeps on giving.
• The inside jokes we share, built over years of friendship, can make us laugh without a word being spoken.
• His impersonations of our favorite movie characters are spot-on and never fail to entertain.

7. Comment on Their Reliability

A best friend’s reliability is the bedrock of trust and security in the relationship.

Discuss how they’ve always been there for you, in times of need or just to share a moment of silence, demonstrating their unwavering support and loyalty.

• Knowing she will always answer my call, no matter the time of day, gives me immense peace of mind.
• He has a way of showing up exactly when I need him, even if I haven’t said a word.
• Her promises are never empty—when she says she’ll be there, she means it.
• The consistency in his support, through both good times and bad, has been my anchor.
• She’s the first person I think to call with news, knowing her support is a given.

8. Highlight Their Compassion and Empathy

The compassion and empathy a best friend shows not only to you but to others as well, is a testament to their character.

Describe instances of their kindness, their ability to empathize with others’ feelings, and how they act to make the world a better place.

• She has an innate ability to sense when someone is struggling and offers comfort without hesitation.
• His kindness isn’t loud or boastful but shown in quiet, thoughtful actions that make a real difference.
• The empathy she shows, even to strangers, challenges me to be a better person every day.
• He can listen to someone’s problems for hours, making them feel heard and understood in a world that often seems indifferent.
• Her volunteer work, driven by a genuine desire to help those in need, inspires those around her to give back as well.

9. Talk About Their Creativity

The creativity of a best friend can manifest in numerous ways, from artistic endeavors to innovative solutions to everyday problems.

Discuss how their creative mind works, the projects they’ve embarked on, and how they inspire you to think outside the box.

• Her paintings are not just art; they’re windows into her soul, vibrant and full of life.
• His ability to turn a simple meal into a gourmet feast with just a few ingredients is nothing short of genius.
• The way she decorates her space, mixing colors and patterns with fearless abandon, reflects her creative spirit.
• He has a knack for storytelling, weaving tales that transport you to another place and time.
• Her innovative solutions to work challenges are a testament to her creative thinking, always leading the team to success.

10. Acknowledge Their Courage and Bravery

A best friend’s courage can be a source of inspiration, showing you the strength to face fears and take on challenges.

Describe moments when they’ve shown bravery, whether in standing up for what’s right or stepping out of their comfort zone.

• Watching her confront her fears head-on has taught me the true meaning of bravery.
• His willingness to stand up for others, even when it’s not the easy path, shows his courageous heart.
• The way she chased her dreams, despite the odds, encouraged me to pursue my own.
• He’s faced life’s toughest battles with a strength that’s both humbling and inspiring.
• Her decision to travel solo around the world was a bold statement of her independence and bravery.

11. Reflect on Their Ambition and Goals

The ambition and goals of a best friend drive them forward, shaping their future and influencing those around them.

Talk about their aspirations, the steps they’re taking to achieve their dreams, and how their determination motivates you.

• Her dreams are big, but her determination to achieve them is even bigger, showing me the power of perseverance.
• Watching him work tirelessly towards his goals has inspired me to set and pursue my own.
• Her clear vision for her future is a beacon of hope in uncertain times, guiding both of us forward.
• The progress he’s made towards his career aspirations is a testament to his hard work and ambition.
• She sets goals that others might consider impossible, but then she achieves them, one by one, proving anything is possible with enough effort.

12. Discuss Their Integrity and Values

The integrity and values of a best friend are central to their character, influencing their decisions and actions.

Describe how they stand firm in their beliefs, act with honesty and honor, and how their moral compass guides them through life.

• She lives by a code of honesty that’s rare in today’s world, making her trustworthiness undeniable.
• His actions always align with his values, even when it’s not the popular choice, showing his true integrity.
• Her respect for others, regardless of their background or beliefs, exemplifies her strong moral foundation.
• He’s never swayed by convenience or peer pressure, holding steadfast to his principles.
• Her commitment to fairness and justice in all she does inspires those around her to strive for the same.

13. Celebrate Their Openness and Honesty

A best friend’s openness and honesty forge a connection built on trust and understanding.

Reflect on the importance of their transparency in your relationship, how it has fostered a deeper bond, and the comfort it brings knowing you can be entirely yourselves with each other.

• Her willingness to share her deepest fears and hopes has opened the door to a level of friendship I never knew existed.
• His honesty, even when it’s hard to hear, has helped me grow in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
• The open communication we share means there are no secrets between us, only trust.
• She’s never afraid to be herself, flaws and all, encouraging me to drop my own facades.
• His transparency in his thoughts and feelings has been the foundation of our unshakeable bond.

Here is an example of how to describe a best friend in writing:

Best Words to Describe a Best Friend in Writing

Choosing the right words to describe a best friend can vividly capture the essence of your unique bond.

Here’s a list to inspire your writing:

• Trustworthy
• Compassionate
• Understanding
• Adventurous
• Intelligent
• Encouraging
• Sympathetic
• Spontaneous
• Open-minded
• Warmhearted
• Resourceful

Best Phrases to Describe a Best Friend in Writing

Phrases add depth to your descriptions, painting a more complete picture of your best friend’s impact on your life.

• A shoulder to lean on
• My partner in crime
• Laughs in the face of adversity
• A beacon of hope
• The voice of reason
• My personal cheerleader
• Stands firm in their beliefs
• Never fails to inspire
• A wellspring of creativity
• The embodiment of kindness
• A rock in turbulent seas
• Brings out the best in me
• A burst of energy
• A mirror to my soul
• A guiding light
• The source of endless laughter
• Always goes the extra mile
• A true confidant
• Heart of gold
• The epitome of strength
• A haven of peace
• Boundlessly generous
• Infectiously optimistic
• Unwaveringly loyal
• Compassion personified
• A master of problem-solving
• Always sees the silver lining
• A catalyst for growth
• The definition of resilience
• A testament to courage
• Embodies genuine care
• Unmatched in wisdom
• A whirlwind of fun
• Keeps me grounded
• The keeper of my secrets
• An unwavering pillar of support
• Radiates positive vibes
• A true visionary
• The warmth of a sunny day
• A reflection of pure love
• Unconditional in their friendship
• A force of nature
• The architect of laughter
• A bridge over troubled waters
• A mosaic of virtues
• The rhythm to my blues
• An anchor in life’s storm
• A whisper in the chaos
• A footprint on the heart
• The melody of life

How to Describe a True Best Friend

Describing a true best friend involves more than just listing their qualities or the fun times you’ve shared.

It’s about conveying the depth of your connection, how they’ve influenced your life, and the irreplaceable role they play in your world.

To describe a true best friend, focus on the emotional resonance of your bond, the ways in which they’ve supported you, and how they inspire you to be your best self.

Consider the challenges you’ve faced together and how those experiences have strengthened your friendship.

Reflect on their character, the moments of joy, and even the simple, everyday interactions that mean so much.

A true best friend is someone who is there for you unconditionally, understands you deeply, and with whom you share an unbreakable bond of trust and mutual respect.

Their presence in your life is a constant source of support, laughter, and love.

How to Describe a Best Friend in a Paragraph

Crafting a vivid description of your best friend adds depth to your writing, showcasing the unique bond you share.

Here are three examples across different genres.

Romantic Comedy

In the whirlwind of life’s chaos, my best friend is my grounding force, the laughter in my heart.

She’s a walking contradiction, a blend of sharp wit and soft heart, always ready with a joke to lighten the heaviest moments. Her eyes sparkle with mischief, mirroring the joy she brings into every room. With her, adventures are endless, laughter is guaranteed, and support is unwavering. She’s the person who knows my soul’s lyrics and never hesitates to sing them back to me when I forget the words.

In every rom-com of my life, she’s the unforgettable sidekick, turning every plot twist into a memorable moment.

Fantasy Adventure

In a realm where magic intertwines with the mundane, my best friend stands as a beacon of unwavering courage and loyalty.

With hair as wild as the winds of the northern seas and eyes gleaming with the wisdom of ancient forests, he walks the path of adventure beside me. His laughter is a spell that dispels the darkest curses, his words woven with the enchantment of old-world tales. In battles against dragons or navigating the treacherous politics of elven courts, his presence is my shield.

Together, we traverse enchanted lands, his spirit unbreakable, making even the direst peril seem like just another exhilarating quest.

Mystery Thriller

In the shadowed corners of our city’s dimmest alleys, my best friend is the beacon that guides me through the fog of mystery.

With a mind sharper than a detective’s intuition and a loyalty stronger than any unsolved case, she stands by me. Her insights are like keys unlocking the most intricate puzzles, her instincts honed to perfection through years of shared secrets and whispered confidences. In every chilling adventure, her presence is my reassurance, her cunning my weapon against the unseen dangers lurking in the night.

Together, we unravel plots wrapped in shadows, her fearless heart the light in the darkness of our thrilling escapades.

Final Thoughts: How to Describe a Best Friend in Writing

Now that you’re armed with the perfect words and phrases, go ahead and give your best friend the spotlight they deserve.

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Book Review: Memoirist Lilly Dancyger’s penetrating essays explore the power of female friendships

This cover image released by Dial Press shows “First Love” by Lilly Dancyger. (Dial Press via AP)

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Who means more to you — your friends or your lovers? In a vivid, thoughtful and nuanced collection of essays, Lilly Dancyger explores the powerful role that female friendships played in her chaotic upbringing marked by her parents’ heroin use and her father’s untimely death when she was only 12.

“First Love: Essays on Friendship” begins with a beautiful paean to her cousin Sabina, who was raped and murdered at age 20 on her way home from a club. As little kids, their older relatives used to call them Snow White and Rose Red after the Grimm’s fairy tale, “two sisters who are not rivals or foils, but simply love each other.”

That simple, uncomplicated love would become the template for a series of subsequent relationships with girls and women that helped her survive her self-destructive adolescence and provided unconditional support as she scrambled to create a new identity as a “hypercompetent” writer, teacher and editor. “It’s true that I’ve never been satisfied with friendships that stay on the surface. That my friends are my family, my truest beloveds, each relationship a world of its own,” she writes in the title essay “First Love.”

The collection stands out not just for its elegant, unadorned writing but also for the way she effortlessly pivots between personal history and spot-on cultural criticism that both comments on and critiques the way that girls and women have been portrayed — and have portrayed themselves — in the media, including on online platforms like Tumblr and Instagram.

For instance, she examines the 1994 Peter Jackson film, “Heavenly Creatures,” based on the true story of two teenage girls who bludgeoned to death one of their mothers. And in the essay “Sad Girls,” about the suicide of a close friend, she analyzes the allure of self-destructive figures like Sylvia Plath and Janis Joplin to a certain type of teen, including herself, who wallows in sadness and wants to make sure “the world knew we were in pain.”

In the last essay, “On Murder Memoirs,” Dancyger considers the runaway popularity of true crime stories as she tries to explain her decision not to attend the trial of the man charged with killing her cousin — even though she was trained as a journalist and wrote a well-regarded book about her late father that relied on investigative reporting. “When I finally sat down to write about Sabina, the story that came out was not about murder at all,” she says. “It was a love story.”

Readers can be thankful that it did.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

21 Best (How-to) Ways to Annoy Your Best Friend

Table of Contents

Best friends are everything to us, aren’t they? Being with a best friend feels like being in heaven. They are the first person you call when things go downhill. A best friend is a person who gives you bad advice, but he or she is also the one who knocks some sense into your head when you are about to do something wrong. As much as we love spending time with our besties, we like to annoy them way better. Annoying your best friend feels like a hobby, doesn’t it? Are you trying to figure out ways to annoy your bestie? We have got you. We have put down a list of ideas that you can use to annoy or irritate your best friend. Read on…

1) Hang up the call after one ring

One of the best ways to annoy your bestie is by giving missed calls continuously. If you ever need to call him/her or he/she has asked you to call, simply give missed calls. Cut the calls on the first ring. This will annoy him/her very much. Make sure he/she does not break your phone, when you meet in person.

2) Reply just with Ks and HMMs

Have you ever been responded solely with hmm and k? Then you must know how annoying it is, right? Well, then just do this with your best friend. When he or she texts you, simply respond with a hmm or a k. will get on his/her nerves. You can also do this while talking on a phone call.

3) Continuously send chain text messages

Have you ever known a person who continuously sends chain messages on your WhatsApp and asks you to share them? This is so annoying, right? Collect a few of these chain messages and send your bestie these messages every hour. Let me alert you. If you are doing this thing with your best friend, I am damn sure you will be blocked on social media.

4) Spam inbox with thousands of random messages

Open our bestie’s inbox and send thousands of irrelevant messages, stickers, and emojis. Trust me, he/she will be so annoyed. He/she might even switch his phone off. This can also freeze his/her phone screen.

5) TYPE IN UPPERCASE

I hate all texts in UPPERCASE and also tried this thing on my bff. This is the best way to annoy your best friend online on social media platforms like WhatsApp or discord. So, whenever you are texting your best friend, type everything in uppercase. My bff called me and started cursing me. If he is not like my friend then trust me, he/she will go offline or might never text you.

6) SPOILER – Discuss every scene while watching movies

Next time when you watch an extremely interesting movie with your best friend, interrupt him/her in between and discuss the movie or something else. Even if you are watching it for the 1st time try to guess the next scene in the movie, otherwise read critics or watch the Youtube review videos before going to the movie and then comment on the movie.

7) Splash a glass of water to wake up your friend

Next time when you have a night in and your bestie is not waking up from his/her goodnight’s sleep, take a glass of water and pour it on his/her face. He/she will wake up in an instant and will be so annoyed. Beware, he/she might take revenge.

8) Toothpaste prank while he is sleeping

If your roommate is sleeping and you want to wake him/her up, put some toothpaste on his/her palm and tickle on the face. Toothpaste is harmless, I won’t recommend shaving foam. He/she will smack his/her hand in the face, which will be covered in toothpaste.

9) Lock your bestie in the bathroom

Locking in the bathroom is one of the most epic ways of annoying someone. Even adults do it. Next time your bestie is taking a shower in the bathroom, lock him/her inside. Do not open for at least 10 minutes. He/she will be so freaking annoyed.

10) Point out the grammatical error

Everyone gets annoyed when someone points out their grammatical errors. Well, do the same to your bestie. Whenever he/she is speaking, interrupt him/her and correct his/her grammatical errors. This thing will surely get on his/her nerves.

11) Stare at his or her phone screen

You might have experienced this while traveling on public transport, the person beside you stares at your phone and this is so annoying. I always imagine myself. So, next time when your bestie is texting in front of you, just stare at his/her phone continuously. 

12) Eat all the food from his or her plate

When you guys are planning on ordering some food, tell him that you don’t want anything. When the food arrives, ask him/her if you can taste his food. Take a bite and don’t stop, eat all of it. This is the best way. He or she will have to place another order.

13) Go against THE Bro-code

If you have a bro-code with your bestie to not date people he/she likes, then here is your cue. Just tell him/her that you are dating the person he/she likes currently. Trust me, you will be able to see the rage. Seriously though, don’t break the bro-code. (Bro being gender-neutral)

14) Post weird pictures on social media

Continuously take pictures of your best friend with him/her making weird faces and poses. If you are concerned about privacy and don’t want to post a real picture of him/her then tag your friend in weird photo posts. Memes are trending, create memes on your friend. Post them on social media to embarrass your friend. Trust me this will annoy anyone. Delete it later. Don’t keep them forever.

15) Call at 3 a.m.

Call your bestie at 3 AM in the morning and talk to him/her about random stuff. Do not let him/her hang up the call. He/she will be so annoyed, and you might end up not sleeping all night.

16) Set random alarms on his or her phone

Take your bestie’s phone when he/she is not around and set multiple annoying alarms at random times to wake up your friends like at 5 AM in the morning or maybe 02:20 AM. The alarm will go off when he/she is sleeping peacefully. If he/she is not short tempered, then will definitely break the phone and will curse you. I have tried this on my younger brother.

17) Repeating every word that comes out of your bestie’s mouth

Naturally, everyone has a tendency to keep their privacy. And here lies a traditional yet proven and effective method of annoying your friends. You will often find kids doing this. Simply, repeat everything your best friend says. This is one of the best ways to annoy him/her. 

18) Music to annoy your friends

Who doesn’t love music? But when best friends are there, even music can become relatable and annoying. Play some music for your friend keeping in mind their likes and dislikes. To put it simply, play music or any audio that they wouldn’t like or expect to hear. For example, if your friend doesn’t like dogs, play any dog barking audio. 

Pinch someone and they would die to pinch you back! Whenever your friend tries to ignore you, use this trick and they would do anything to try to pinch you. This not only annoys them but is also a favourite time-pass. 

20) Act like a touchy friend

If you have a sensitive friend, you have an undue advantage over your friend. Just catch their sensitive body parts like their backs of the neck, waist, etc. It would produce an irritating vibration in their body. Who knows you may discover some cool but weird dance steps too when their body shakes!

21) Be sarcastic

Sarcasm is the need of the hour. Everyone wants to be sarcastic but no one wants to be the subject of sarcasm. And here lies the key. Use sarcasm and intentionally talk in a way to make him angry.

Related posts:

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24 Ways to Annoy Your Brother to Death

• 11 Best (How-to) Ways to Annoy a Jealous Person in 2024

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Other Papers Say: Even Starbucks is suffering

The following editorial originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune:

The U.S. consumer is increasingly tapped out, and the effects are being felt in even the strongest, most resilient brands out there. Exhibit A is Starbucks.

The Seattle-based coffee chain, ubiquitous in the U.S. and increasingly a global franchise, recently delivered a first-quarter earnings report that sent many investors running for the exits like their caramel frappuccinos were on fire. The stock closed down nearly 16 percent on more than eight times the average trading volume.

Suffice to say there was investor shock over a brand that has known decades of robust growth reporting a 4 percent year-over-year decline in same-store sales. The obvious concern: Have U.S. consumers (not to mention those in China and other countries) finally hit a limit on how much they will pay for a cup of coffee?

To be clear, Starbucks isn’t the only fast-food or convenience brand whipsawed by sour consumer sentiment.

One can discern quite a bit from the fast-food and convenience-dining sectors in terms of the state of the economy and even politics. Last year, the economic narrative focused on the remarkably resilient U.S. consumer, still cheerily spending away despite inflationary pressures and relatively high interest rates.

In the past, when consumers got nervous about the economy and their household budgets, McDonald’s and other fast-food purveyors would thrive. After all, those options were affordable alternatives to a pricier restaurant downtown or even a neighborhood diner.

We appear to be seeing something new in this version of economic angst. Cost pressures — including minimum-wage requirements — have driven up the price of fast-food meals to a point where people are shocked at the counter.

Arguably no chain has proven more impregnable to this dynamic than Starbucks. But the coffee giant at long last may have hit a wall. There are locally owned coffee specialists virtually everywhere, giving consumers a truly singular experience. And when Starbucks’ prices essentially are the same as the boutique neighborhood roaster, despite the massive economies-of-scale advantages Starbucks enjoys, it prompts head-scratching.

Could a ceiling on a tall coffee of the day or monthly specials like two lattes for the price of one be coming soon to a Starbucks near you? The Seattle brain trust reassured analysts such an approach is furthest from their minds. Another few quarters like the first may soften their resolve.

McDonald’s may have some tips to offer their rivals in Seattle, having gone through more than a few of these cycles in which the Golden Arches’ prices, products or both required substantial overhaul.

It’s no sin to offer good value. Americans are practical people. We’re betting most of those who duck into a Starbucks would be pleased to see some special deals on the menu.

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Michael Cohen testifies in Trump hush money trial

By CNN's Kara Scannell, Lauren Del Valle and Jeremy Herb in the courthouse

Key takeaways from Michael Cohen's first day of testimony

From CNN's  Jeremy Herb, Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell

Michael Cohen implicated his former boss  Donald Trump  in the hush money scheme to pay Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 election, saying he doled out $130,000 at Trump’s direction and was promised reimbursement.

Cohen’s testimony ties together the prosecution’s allegations that Trump broke the law by falsifying business records to reimburse Cohen and conceal the hush money payment that Cohen said he made at Trump’s direction. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies having an affair with Daniels.

Here are some of the key takeaways from Cohen's first day on the stand:

• Cohen ties Trump to the Daniels hush money payment: Through roughly five hours of testimony Monday, Cohen walked jurors through how he worked with former National Enquirer editor David Pecker on Trump’s behalf during the 2016 campaign to kill negative stories; how he kept Trump apprised of his hush money negotiations with Keith Davidson, the attorney for Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal; and how Trump approved and was aware of how Cohen would be falsely repaid in 2017 for the Daniels payment as legal services.
• Cohen ties the hush money reimbursement to Trump, too: Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records – 11 invoices, 12 vouchers and 11 checks – records that prosecutors say stem from the monthly reimbursements Cohen received in 2017 for the hush money payment he made to Daniels. On Monday, jurors heard through Cohen for the first-time evidence directly connecting Trump to those reimbursements.
• Cohen describes being Trump’s protector: As Cohen described each media story he killed and nondisclosure agreement he locked down ahead of the 2016 election, it was always in the name of protecting Trump. When it came to the settlement agreement with Daniels, Cohen said he kept control of a document revealing the identities of “David Dennison” and “Peggy Peterson” so that he could protect Trump. And he testified that he used the Essential Consultants LLC to facilitate the payment to Daniels “to protect him and to isolate him from the transaction.” Hoffinger asked Cohen whether he would sometimes bully people. Cohen confirmed he would.

Cohen is expected back in court tomorrow

Donald Trump's ex-attorney and fixer  Michael Cohen  took the stand today to testify about the  Stormy Daniels hush money payment  and Trump's  alleged involvement in the scheme .

He's expected to face more questions tomorrow. Court proceedings are expected to resume at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Michael Cohen took the stand as a key witness in Donald Trump's hush money trial. Here's what he said

From CNN's Elise Hammond

Michael Cohen took the stand on Monday in Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York.

When he was Trump’s personal attorney, Cohen made the $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. He landed in federal prison  over that transaction for breaking campaign finance laws. 

Through previous witnesses’ testimony, jurors have already heard plenty about Cohen. They have painted an unflattering portrait of an aggressive, impulsive and unlikeable attorney. The former “fixer,” now a critical witness , testified about the payment and Trump’s alleged involvement.

Here’s a look at what Cohen said on the stand today:

• Relationship with Trump: Cohen said he worked directly for Trump , not the general counsel's office at the Trump Organization. He said working with the press was a “portion” of his job and would sometimes call news outlets and ask them to redact or take articles down. Cohen testified that it was required for him to keep Trump updated about his work.
• On the presidential run: Cohen said Trump was worried about stories about his personal life coming out as he weighed a run for president, with Trump saying, “Just be prepared there’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” according to Cohen. He testified that he didn’t have a formal role in the 2016 campaign, but he used his press contacts to be a surrogate .
• The doorman story: Cohen said he learned about the doorman story circulating about Trump having fathered "a love child” and testified Trump told him to “handle it.” He confirmed that the strategy was to take the story “off the market” for $30,000, and Trump was grateful it wouldn’t be published. Cohen said he went to Trump to tell him the agreement was completed , as well as to get credit for executing it. 
• Karen McDougal: He said Trump told him to make sure the story about former Playboy model Karen McDougal didn’t get released, which he believed meant acquiring it . Cohen recounted a call with Pecker and Trump about the story. When Cohen told Trump the cost of controlling the McDougal story, Cohen testified Trump said, “No problem, I’ll take care of it.” Later, David Pecker, former CEO of the National Enquirer’s parent company, spoke to Cohen and insisted on being reimbursed .
• "Access Hollywood" tape: When he learned about the video , released by the Washington Post, Cohen said he wanted to "ensure" things were being taken care of properly and that Trump would be protected . He testified that it was Melania Trump’s idea to say the language in the video “was locker room talk.” Cohen recalled thinking the tape would impact women voters.
• Stormy Daniels: When he initially told Trump about the Stormy Daniels story, Cohen testified that Trump said, “Women are going to hate me” and that it would be “a disaster for the campaign.” Cohen said his former boss told him to work with Pecker to “take care of it.” As the agreement unfolded, Cohen said he kept Trump informed on the deal with Daniels.
• Timing of Daniel’s payment: Trump wanted the situation with Daniels to be under wraps until after the election “because if I win, it will have no relevance because I'm president. And if I lose, I don't even care,” Trump said, according to Cohen.
• Making the payment: Cohen said he spoke with Trump twice to get his sign-off before making the payment to Daniels using a company he created , Essential Consultants LLC. He said he would have never gone forward to the bank without Trump’s approval. He testified he also let Trump know he signed the agreement with Daniels.
• Repayment to Cohen: Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg told Cohen he would be paid $420,000 for Daniel’s payment over 12 months . He testified that the payment series set up for future legal services was actually a reimbursement .

Trump rails against judge and says there's no crime in remarks outside of Manhattan courthouse

From CNN's Maureen Chowdhury

Donald Trump slammed Judge Juan Merchan and called the hush money trial a "scam" as he left the Manhattan courthouse on Monday.

“This is a scam, I think it’s it’s terrible thing that’s happening to democracy in this country,” Trump said. He then called the case a "rigged deal" and Merchan "conflicted." 

He went on to read comments made by his allies regarding the case.

“There’s no fraud here, there’s no crime here," Trump said.

Trump's motorcade leaves the courthouse

Donald Trump's motorcade has left the courthouse. His car slowed down so he could wave and flash a thumbs up to supporters gathered outside.

Testimony in Trump's trial continues tomorrow.

Afternoon sketches show Michael Cohen on the stand as his former boss sits nearby in court

From CNN Digital's Photo Desk

Sketch artists Christine Cornell and Jane Rosenberg have been providing us with courtroom perspectives throughout the trial as cameras are not allowed inside during proceedings.

Here are some of their latest sketches from Michael Cohen’s testimony Monday afternoon:

More sketches from Cohen's testimony can be seen here .

The final moments today in the courtroom: Trump stacks his papers and Cohen nods toward jurors

As Judge Juan Merchan gives his daily instructions to the jury, Donald Trump is stacking up his papers and whispering with attorney Todd Blanche.

His hands are folded on the table and he then flips through the papers one more time.

Michael Cohen, for his part, pans the courtroom and then looks down at his hands as Merchan is speaking.

Cohen gives a small smile and nods toward the jurors as Merchan dismisses them for the day.

The key points of Michael Cohen's testimony about how he was reimbursed for the hush money deal

From CNN's Eric Levenson

Michael Cohen finished the day’s testimony by explaining how he, former Trump Org. CFO Allen Weisselberg and Donald Trump agreed to reimburse him for the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

After Trump won the election, Cohen pitched Trump on a set up in which he would serve as Trump’s personal attorney for free but would be paid by companies hoping for insights on Trump.

In early January, Cohen went to Weisselberg about being reimbursed for the $130,000 payment, and Weisselberg agreed, Cohen testified. He showed Weisselberg the wire transfer document, and Weisselberg took handwritten notes calculating what Trump owed Cohen based on their conversations.

Weisselberg suggested Cohen take the money as income rather than as untaxed reimbursements, Cohen testified. "I didn’t really think about it. I just wanted to get my money back,” he said.

According to Cohen, they agreed that Trump would pay him $420,000 in all: $130,000 to reimburse him for the payment to Daniels, $50,000 to reimburse him for unrelated tech services, $180,000 to account for estimated taxes and a $60,000 bonus. The payments would be made over 12 months “as like a legal service rendered since I was then going to be given the title of personal attorney to the president,” Cohen testified.

They presented the plan to Trump, and he approved it, Cohen said. The payments were designed to look like future legal services, but they were actually reimbursement for the Daniels’ deal, he testified.

Cohen never actually put together a retainer agreement for any future work he'd do for Trump, “because I knew there was going to be no compensation,” he testified.

Court is breaking for the day

The court is breaking for the day and the jury is leaving the courtroom.

Donald Trump's ex-attorney Michael Cohen is expected to continue to be questioned by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger tomorrow.

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The West Doesn’t Understand How Much Russia Has Changed

By Alexander Gabuev

Mr. Gabuev, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote from Berlin.

Vladimir Putin’s trip to Beijing this week, where he will meet with Xi Jinping and top Chinese officials, is another clear demonstration of the current closeness between Russia and China.

Yet many in the West still want to believe that their alliance is an aberration, driven by Mr. Putin’s emotional anti-Americanism and his toxic fixation on Ukraine. Once Mr. Putin and his dark obsessions are out of the picture, the thinking goes , Moscow will seek to rebuild ties with the West — not least because the bonds between Russia and China are shallow, while the country has centuries of economic and cultural dependence on Europe.

This wishful view, however appealing, overlooks the transformation of Russia’s economy and society. Never since the fall of the Soviet Union has Russia been so distant from Europe, and never in its entire history has it been so entwined with China. The truth is that after two years of war in Ukraine and painful Western sanctions, it’s not just Mr. Putin who needs China — Russia does, too.

China has emerged as Russia’s single most important partner, providing a lifeline not only for Mr. Putin’s war machine but also for the entire embattled economy. In 2023, Russia’s trade with China hit a record $240.1 billion, up by more than 60 percent from prewar levels, as China accounted for 30 percent of Russia’s exports and nearly 40 percent of its imports.

Before the war, Russia’s trade with the European Union was double that with China; now it’s less than half. The Chinese yuan, not the dollar or the euro, is now the main currency used for trade between the two countries, making it the most traded currency on the Moscow stock exchange and the go-to instrument for savings.

This economic dependence is filtering into everyday life. Chinese products are ubiquitous and over half of the million cars sold in Russia last year were made in China. Tellingly, the top six foreign car brands in Russia are now all Chinese, thanks to the exodus of once dominant Western companies. It’s a similar story in the smartphone market, where China’s Xiaomi and Tecno have eclipsed Apple and Samsung, and with home appliances and many other everyday items.

These shifts are tectonic. Even in czarist times, Russia shipped its commodities to Europe and relied on imports from the West of manufactured goods. Russia’s oligarchs, blacklisted by most Western countries, have had to adapt to the new reality. Last month, the businessman Vladimir Potanin, whose fortune is estimated at $23.7 billion, announced that his copper and nickel empire would reorient toward China, including by moving production facilities into the country. “If we’re more integrated into the Chinese economy,” he said, “we’ll be more protected.”

From the economy, education follows. Members of the Russian elite are scrambling to find Mandarin tutors for their kids, and some of my Russian contacts are thinking about sending their children to universities in Hong Kong or mainland China now that Western universities are much harder to reach. This development is more than anecdotal. Last year, as China opened up after the pandemic, 12,000 Russian students went to study there — nearly four times as many than to the United States.

This reorientation from West to East is also visible among the middle class, most notably in travel. There are now, for example, five flights a day connecting Moscow and Beijing in under eight hours, with a return ticket costing about $500. By contrast, getting to Berlin — one of many frequent European weekend destinations for middle-class Russians before the war — can now take an entire day and cost up to twice as much.

What’s more, European cities are being replaced as Russian tourist destinations by Dubai, Baku in Azerbaijan and Istanbul, while business trips are increasingly to China, Central Asia or the Gulf . Locked out of much of the West, which scrapped direct flights to Russia and significantly reduced the availability of visas for Russians, middle-class Russians are going elsewhere.

Intellectuals are turning toward China, too. Russian scientists are beginning to work with and for Chinese companies, especially in fields such as space exploration, artificial intelligence and biotech . Chinese cultural influence is also growing inside Russia. With Western writers like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman withdrawing the rights to publish their work in Russia, publishers are expanding their rosters of Chinese works. Supported by lavish grants for translators from the Chinese government, this effort is set to bring about a boom in Chinese books.

Chinese culture will not replace Western culture as Russians’ main reference point any time soon. But a profound change has taken place. From the other side of the Iron Curtain, Europe was seen as a beacon of human rights, prosperity and technological development, a space that many Soviet citizens aspired to be part of.

Now a growing number of educated Russians, on top of feeling bitterness toward Europe for its punitive sanctions, see China as a technologically advanced and economically superior power to which Russia is ever more connected. With no easy way back to normal ties with the West, that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

In his dystopian novel “ Day of the Oprichnik ,” Vladimir Sorokin describes a deeply anti-Western Russia of 2028 that survives on Chinese technology while cosplaying the medieval brutality of Ivan the Terrible’s era. With every passing day, this unsettling and foresighted novel — published in 2006 as a warning to Russia about the direction of travel under Mr. Putin — reads more and more like the news.

Alexander Gabuev ( @AlexGabuev ) is the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

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