longer needed as a context for socializing. The overall group changes in
ways that facilitate growth of close relationships; there is a shift from
shared play and sports in childhood to more intimacy in adolescence.
For younger adolescents, becoming a couple and dating offers companion-
ship, but for older adolescents, it provides trust and support.
The transition from childhood friendship to adolescent peer group to
dating couples prepares adolescents for developing close relationships in
adulthood. These changes in the adolescent peer group help adolescents
to make the transition from gender-segregated peer groups in childhood
to close relationships in adulthood.
Though the emphasis here has been on adolescents, recent attention is
being paid to the ways that cliques continue past high school and college,
and there is concern about their impact in neighborhood settings, among
groups of parents in schools and on teams, within workplaces in political
and civic organizations, and beyond.
FRIENDSHIPS
For without friends no one would choose to live.
—Philosopher Aristotle
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
—Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson
I pick my friends like I pick my fruit.
—Singer Erykah Badu
In these words, we see great insight on friendship and the ability to social-
ize that these provide. These relationships contain a host of behaviors and
activities, including greeting someone you pass on a walk in your neighbor-
hood, occasionally calling someone on the phone, grabbing coffee or
lunch with someone, or signing up for parasailing classes or a Zumba class
with someone you know.
Friendships are different from other social relationships. In contrast to
other social relationships that may be limited to certain parts of one’s life
(e.g., spouse, student), friendships exist throughout the life span (see
Chapter 5 for socializing throughout the life span). Friendships are impor-
tant in the provision of basic needs for contact, communication, and com-
munity. A quick perusal of self-help sections of bookstores, letters to
advice columnists, and TV talk shows will show that much attention,
angst, and anxiety surround our quests to start, maintain, improve, or end
8 Hanging Out
