The Four Loves
by: C.S. Lewis

"The rest of us know that though we can have erotic love and friendship for the same person yet in some ways nothing is less like a Friendship than a love-affair. Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is mecessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best. And the reason for this is important."

"Lovers seek for privacy. Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not. Theu would be glad to reduce it. The first two would be glad to find a third."

"Notice that Freindship thus repeats on a more individual and less socially necessary level the character of the Companionship which was its matrix. The Companionship was between people who were doing something together -- hunting, studying, painting or what you will. The Friends will still be doing something together, but something more inward, less widely shared and less easily defined; still hunters, but in some work the world does not, or not yet, take acount of; still travelling companions, but on a different kind of journey. Hence we picture lovers face to face but Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead."