Advanced Topics Discussion - Why do people form relationships?

Preface: A few days ago, /u/GayLubeOil posted "The Normie Threshold" where he brought up the idea of discussing advanced topics. This post is a step in that direction.

I have been working on a theory about social relationships. This theory affects everything from individual friendships, work relationships, family relationships, and LTRs, to larger social relationships, like the idea of community.

All of that is too much to describe in a single post, so I'm starting this dicussion with the foundation of thought process, which is a model describing why people form relationships in the first place.

What do people for relationships?

A joint study was done from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Oklahoma (See "Interpersonal chemistry through negativity: Bonding by sharing negative attitudes about others." Personal Relationships, 13 (2006), 135-150). Their findings state that sharing common dislikes creates stronger social bonds than sharing common likes.

This article was the keystone that tied together all of the content I've read in other journals, along with my subjective observations of my relationships and the relationships of others.

Much of my experiences with friends, family, and significant others lead me to believe that nonsexual relationships are largely predicated on the need for survival. Truly, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." If one or both of us do not feel threatened by the same problem as the other person, then our relationship will wane.

This explains why friendships after high school fall apart once high school is completed. At the time, everyone faced the same common enemy: high school. Once high school was no longer a factor, no one needed each other for their perceived survival.

I also believe that the intensity of the survival threat directly correlates to the strength of the bond. When I was briefly in the military, the relationships I had with the guys in my unit were much stronger than the bonds I had with friends outside of the military, even though the guys in my unit were not the type of guys that I would have normally hung out with in the real world.

I've spent a lot of time wondering why it's so difficult for men to foster friendships as they age. There is no shortage of articles written about this subject.

I believe the answer lies in sharing a common perceived enemy with someone. People aren't drawn together; we're pushed together by external threats. As social animals, we band together to improve our individual chance of survival. But if there isn't a common threat, then there isn't any force that causes us to build social bonds with one another.

I believe the necessary conditions for a nonsexual relationship to manifest is predicated on the following:

• A common enemy. Separately, both individuals must realize that some external force is a threat to their individual survival. If either person does not view that external stimuli as a threat or is otherwise unaware of the external stimuli, then a relationship cannot develop.

• The strength of the social bond is directly related to the intensity of the perceived threat. You will never be as close to your at-work friends as you will that group of assholes in the military.

• The strength of the social bond is inversely related to an individual's ability to escape from the threatening circumstances, meaning the easier it is for any one person to escape, then the weaker the social bond you will have with that person. Inversely, the harder it is for both of you to escape, the stronger your social bond can be with that person. High school, the military, prison... these are places where strong social bonds develop. Your at-work friends will never be as close to you as your prison friends (at least, while you're in prison) because you or your at-work friend have the power to leave work of their own volition. You can't leave prison when you want.

• Once the perceived threat passes and is no longer perceived as a threat by at least one member of the relationship, the relationship will wane. Alternatively, if at least one member perceives another person to have a better chance of overcoming that threat than you can provide, then the relationship will wane.

...

At this point, I want to open the floor to discussing this model for how relationships are formed. If this model doesn't hold water, then that will affect a cascade of other topics that depend on it.