Are all friends created equal?

My cousin has been pestering me for quite some time to write something more intellectual (in her own words) than those I have been doling out on my blog lately. So, I am going to take a stab at something I have been pondering for a while now. I would probably be opening up the Pandora’s box but I am open to discussion/debate, as always. Ok…enough introductions already.

So, the question is “What is the mantra for a friendship to flourish”? If you go by the book, its when all the individuals involved have equal say in decisions and there is probably a common interest(s) that binds them together. It’s essentially a democratic process. While I agree with the common interest thingy, I differ about the former. In contrast, I think a friendship between two (or a group of) individuals flourish when, loosely speaking, there is a leader and a follower! From what I have observed in my life so far, when two individuals have strong opinions about something and are usually the type that would like to lead rather than to listen then the ego clashes would eventually arise. A close bonding friendship is seldom possible in this case. On the other hand, if one of the guys usually takes the lead in decisions and the other is willing to follow then a very close friendship will be formed. The decision making role can change from event to event and person to person but there always have to be, for any given decision, one that leads and others that follow. This last sentence might seem to be a convenient fit for our friendship model (to pamper our egos), but the problem is, a person who likes to take decisions usually wants to take a decision of his own in every event, irrespective of his expertise in deciding over an event. He wouldn’t be willing to follow someone. So, it’s not as convenient as you think. All, I am saying is leaders can’t be good friends.

This might seem outrageous at first but if you really look closely at friendships near you, I’m sure you will find this. I did. Now, it needn’t be as obvious a decision maker – follower model as I make it out to be; in fact often times than not this relationship is very subtle. The societal upbringing and our own egos probably wouldn’t allow us to see this because we were always told that a good friendship thrives when everyone involved has equal share in decision making. Not true. Why does a company need a CEO, why does a country need a President…can’t everyone involved make a decision? No. Because when everyone is (equally) involved in making a decision it’s hard to reach a consensus. This is actually known as "distributed consensus problem" in computer science. Allow me to be a little geekier, when I refer to the interesting Arrow’s theorem from one of the classes I took recently: In a voting based election, the only procedure that guarantees 3 crucial properties (transitivity, unanimity and independence of irrelevant alternatives) that any fair election should satisfy is Dictatorship! Not a majority, not pair-wise contests or anything…only dictatorship. If we keep aside the atrocities, oppression etc, and look from a pure decision making perspective I think dictatorship wins hand down compared to democracy in efficiency.

Now, I know that friendship is not only about decision making but involves lot of complex yet beautiful mixture of love, comfort, kindness, happiness etc etc, but trying to see from one view point is always interesting and gives us a perspective. To me, atleast.