and yet it's also the most routinely disappointing thing we have to deal with.

Too often you're at supper at someone's house,

there's an impressive spread and the hosts have evidently gone to a lot of trouble.

But the conversation is meandering and

devoid of any real interest it flits

from an overlong description of the

failings of the in-flight service on a

particular airline to a strangely heated

discussion about the tax code. The

intentions of the hosts are hugely

touching, but as so often we go home

wondering what on earth the whole

performance was really about. The key to

the problem of friendship is to be found

in an odd sounding place: a lack of a

sense of purpose. Our attempts at

friendship tend to go adrift because we

collectively resist the task of

developing a clear picture of what

friendship might really be for.

The problem is that we're unfairly

uncomfortable with the idea of

friendship having any declared purpose,

because we associate purpose with the

least attractive and most cynical of

motives. Yet purpose doesn't have to ruin

friendship and in fact the more we

define what a friendship might be for

the more we can focus in on what we

should be doing with every person in our

lives, or indeed the more we can

helpfully conclude that we shouldn't be

with them at all.

There are at least four things we might

be trying to do with the people we know.

Firstly, networking. It's an unfairly

maligned idea. We're small, fragile

creatures in a vast world. Our individual

capacities are entirely insufficient to

realize the demands of our imaginations.

So of course we need collaborators,

accomplices who can align their

abilities and energies with ours.

This idea of friendship was given a lot

of space in classical literature.

Take the Argonauts, the legendary ancient

Greek tale, which traced how a heroic

captain called Jason networked in order to

assemble a band of friends to sail on

the Arkham, in search of the Golden

Fleece. Later, the same idea emerged when

Jesus networked, to put together a band of

twelve disciples with whom he could

spread one or two world-changing ideas

about forgiveness and compassion. Rather

than diminish our own efforts as we hand

out our business cards, such prestigious

examples can show how elevated an

ambitious networking friendships could

ideally be. Secondly, reassurance. The

human condition is full of terror. We're

always on the verge of disgrace, danger

and disappointment and yet, such are the

rules of polite conduct that we're

permanently in danger of imagining that

we are the only ones to be as crazy as

we know we are. We badly need friends

because with the people we know only

superficially, there are few

confessions of sexual compulsion or of

regret, rage and confusion. These

superficial acquaintances refuse to

admit that they, too, are going slightly

out of their minds. Yet the reassuring

true friend gives us access to a very

necessary and accurate sense of their

own humiliations and follies, insights

with which we can begin to judge

ourselves and our sad and compulsive

lives slightly more compassionately.

Thirdly, fun. Despite talk of hedonism and

immediate gratification, life gives us

constant lessons in the need to be

serious.

We have to guard our dignity, avoid

looking like a fool and pass as a mature

adult. The pressure can become onerous

and in the end even dangerous. That's why

we constantly need access to people we

can trust enough to be silly with them.

They might most of the time be training

to be a neurosurgeon or advising middle

sized companies about their tax

liabilities, but when we're together we

can be therapeutically daft. We can put

on accents, share lewd fantasies or doodle

on the newspaper, adding a huge nose and

a missing front tooth to the President

or giving the fashion model distended

ears and masses of

curly hair. The fun friend solves the

problem of shame around important but

unprestigious sides of ourselves.

Fourthly, clarifying our minds. To a

surprising degree it's very hard to

think on our own.

The mind is skittish and squeamish. As a

result, many issues lie confused within

us. We feel angry but are not sure why.

Something is wrong with our job but we

can't pin it down. The thinking friend

holds us to the task. They ask gentle

but probing questions which act as a

mirror that assist us with the task of

knowing ourselves. One side effect of

getting a bit more precise about what

we're trying to do with our social lives,

is that we're likely to conclude that in

many cases, we're spending time with

people for no truly identifiable good

reason. These proto friends share none of

our professional ambitions or interests,

they aren't reassuring and may indeed be

secretly really very excited by the

possibility of failure. We can't be

catharticly silly around them and they

aren't the least bit interested in

furthering our or their path to self

knowledge. They are, like so many of the

people in our social lives, simply in our

orbit as a result of some unhappy

accident that we've been too sentimental

to correct. We should dare to be a little

ruthless in this area. Culling

acquaintances isn't a sign that we've

lost belief in friendship, it's evidence

that we're starting to get clearer and

therefore more demanding about what a

friendship could really be. In the best

way the price of knowing what friendship

is for may be a few more evenings at home

in our own company