Name: Tanzeelul Hoque

ID: 1831671630
Course: ENG105
Section 22
Topic selected: Friendships contribute more to a person’s wellbeing than romantic relationships.

Friendships contribute more to a person’s wellbeing than romantic relationships.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy “love and belonging” is a human need and comes right after the
needs of physiology and safety. This particular need for “love and belonging” if broken down further
and explained in terms of relationships, it will comprise of relationships such as familial relationships,
friendships, love relationships and many more. When it comes to life, some people are known to agree
upon the fact that romantic relationships contribute more to a person’s welfare than friendship, as a
romantic partner may both be a friend and a lover and provide the benefits of both. However I
personally think friendships contribute more to personal wellbeing than love relationships, because of
absence of role conflict and commitment.

Absence of role conflict makes friendship a type of relationship which is free of confusion. A friend is
just a friend and not a lover unless implied, therefore the friend only has to fulfill the role of a friend
and has no need to play the role of a lover. How may that contribute to the wellbeing of the person?
The answer is simple, this will limit the person’s expectation to a rational boundary, where he will not
ask more than friendship from a friend. Although the question may arise that friends do turn into lovers
and prior to that the person may be holding romantic feeling for the friend, which Is an extension to
expectation to a friend who is currently a friend. In such scenario such feeling is regarded as a
limitation. This limitation can be dealt by holding some factors constant. For instance, a person has to
be straight and have a friend of same sex, that way the “absence of role conflict” is viable in a
friendship and thus contributes more to wellbeing of a person by limiting his expectations from a
particular relationship. This reduces the chances of getting hurt from circumstance such as unmet
expectation thus increasing welfare of a person’s life.

Friendships require no specific commitment which love relationships need. A friend can be a friend to
multiple people but a lover can only be a lover to one. This cancels out the problem of cheating in
friendships which also cancels out problems like jealousy and suspicion. This helps a person to have
lesser mental stress from relationships and therefore a better quality of life.

Although love relationships may contribute more in life by providing both a lover and a friend, as a
lover can also be your best friend. But this advantage gets mitigated by certain condition which is the
role conflict. If a person is both a friend and a lover, he has to provide both of friendship and love in as
per the expectation of his partner or friend. Imbalance may cause his or her partner or friend to be
dissatisfied of the relationship causing more harm than good. This again makes friendship a better
contributor to the wellbeing of a person’s life by limiting expectations and reducing the chances of
being unhappy from unmet or excessive expectations.
Friendships contributes far better in the wellbeing of a personal life due to absence of commitment and
and role conflict. They contribute more to wellbeing by reducing stress and irrational expectations.