ABSTRACT
A broad approach to the term is in keeping with important aspects of reality. Proverbial references to 'friends in need', and qualifiers such as 'close' or 'really good', suggest that 'true' friendship is an ideal less often achieved than some might hope. Such variation in intensity and mutuality of personal commitment in different individual cases of 'friendship' may make it difficult to pin down, but it is nonetheless intrinsic to its 'achieved', and therefore developmental, quality and its combination of moral and organizational characteristics. Friendship is commonly compared and contrasted with patron-client links. The chief contrast turns on the asymmetry and inequality which mark the latter ties, as opposed to the ideally egalitarian nature of friendship. A key feature of such variation was the role of certain individuals as particularly active 'networkers', building up a wide range of connections for themselves and also serving as central points of juncture for links between others who were less well connected.
