Friendships is a common phenomenon in relationships among human beings, but its content and dynamics can vary depending on the characteristics and categories of individuals involved in them. Intimacy can be considered as a critical element of friendships, which can have a great deal of influence on the overall strength of the relationship as well as its resilience to potential challenges. The given assessment will primarily focus on female friendships and how intimacy defines these types of relationships.
The level of greater intimacy characteristics of female friendships is not necessarily a positive factor since it can make the relationship between the involved parties highly fragile. Evidence suggests that “the intimacy of female relationships was influenced by similarity (homophily) in many more factors (notably dependability, kindness, mutual support, sense of humor) than was the case for men” (Pearce et al., 2020, p. 1). In other words, the element of intimacy is dictated primarily by the similarity or homophily between the involved individuals. Since the effect of intimacy and its dependency on the similarity is greatest for women, it also makes such friendships to be fragile. It is important to note that people will likely experience some changes in their interests, behaviors, and other factors over time, which means that female friendships’ high dependency on similarity and intimacy makes these types of relationships reluctant for changes promoting relational aggression in the long run.
In conclusion, a greater degree of intimacy between female same-sex friendships is not necessarily a positive thing since it makes such relationships more fragile in the long term. Intimacy is deeply connected to similarity or homophily, which means that any changes among the involved individuals are likely to cause relational aggression and subsequently break the friendship.
Reference
Pearce, E., Machin, A., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2020). Sex differences in intimacy levels in best friendships and romantic partnerships. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 7(1), 1–16.