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Students of philosophy understand that Friendships can be broadly classified into three categories.

I will explain these categories with some examples to document my understanding on this.

Three categories – Friendship of passion (most common),  Utilitarian friendship and perfect friendship (least common). A progression from one to other may happen, however it is not necessary, and they are independent. I am not going to elaborate why they occur in this writing; all I am doing here is to show what they are.

Friendship of passion.

In this type of friendship, two or more people derive happiness doing a common act. The act itself could be anything and belongs to a large set of everyday activities. This type of friendship is easy to form and requires some common favorable activity.

Examples of this category are

1. John and James play weekend Golf.
2. Jack and Jasmine eat pizza and shop at the mall on Wednesday.
3. A group of people follow a sports team.

These friendships end when the passion starts to decline.

Utilitarian Friendship.

In this type of friendship, between two people or two groups help each other in quid pro quo mode. Usually this friendship forms between people who can help each other more frequently. One person takes some hardship to help the other with an expected reciprocation. The friendship lasts if the need continues to exist, and  amount of hardship incurred is nearly equal.

Examples of this category are

1. Neighbors help each other with gardening chores.
2. People do carpool to commute
3. Parents who takes turns to drive kids to school.

These friendships end when the value of the utility gain diminishes.

Perfect Friendship.

In this type of friendship, two people always do things for the other without any expectations. Person A will do a task for the benefit of person B and for person B alone. One person takes on the burden and with no gain, except the happiness derived from helping the other. These types of friendships do not need reciprocity.  This type of friendships takes a long time to form but usually last a long time.

Examples of this category are

1. Teacher and Student.  Students benefit from the hard work of a good teacher.
2. Jack extends help to James at difficult times (Sickness, financial troubles).
3. Jill encourages and celebrates all the successes of Jack.
4. Abe recommends opportunities to Bob  that are beneficial only to Bob. (job openings, expense reduction)  

These friendships last a long time, even when they appear to be weakened, they are waiting to be normal soon.

One should be and find someone to be a perfect friend that makes life wonderful to live.

Sugar for coffee, butter for bread
Wine for dinner and blanket to cover
Friendship is such to enhance ones life
Lucky are the ones that have a lot of friends.

Share the fun, joy and burdens of life
Shelter, protect, forgive and provide for one other
True friendships have no expectations nor boundaries
Family, friends and simple living pray to keep for ever.