Questionnaire on Friendship, by Max Frisch

  1. Do you think you are a good friend?
  2. What feels more like betrayal to you:
    1. If the other is doing it?
    2. If you do it?
  3. How many friends do you have right now?
  4. Do you think that the time a friendship lasts is a measure for its value?
  5. What would you not forgive a friend?
    1. Double tongue?
    2. That he is stealing a woman?
    3. That he can be sure of you?
    4. Irony against you?
    5. That he cannot handle criticism?
    6. That he values people you see as enemies?
    7. That you don't have influence on him?
  6. Would you like to be able to contently be without friends?
  7. Did you get yourself a dog as friend?
  8. Was there ever a time in your life when you had no friends, or do you lower your standards in such times?
  9. Do you know friendship with women:
    1. Before sex?
    2. After sex?
    3. Without sex?
  10. What do you fear more: being judged by a friend or by an enemy?
  11. Why?
  12. Do you have enemies that you secretly wish were your friends, so you could admire them more easily?
  13. If someone could help you out with money, or you could help someone out with money: would you see in this a thread to your existing friendship?
  14. Do you think nature is your friend?
  15. If you hear through the grapevine that a bad joke about yourself was started by a friend: do you cut the friendship as a consequence? If yes:
  16. How much honesty can you bear from a friend in public or written or in private?
  17. Assuming you have a friend who is intellectually superior to you: does the friendship consolidate you over this fact or do you secretly doubt a kind of friendship, which is solely earned by admiration, loyalty, helpfulness etc?
  18. For which of the following did you fall because of a natural desire for friendship?:
    1. Compliments?
    2. Same nationality when being abroad?
    3. The insight that you simply couldn't afford an enmity (e.g. because it could harm your professional career)?
    4. Your own charm?
    5. It pleases your vanity to publicly call a notable person your friend?
    6. Ideological mutual understanding?
  19. How do you talk about past friends?
  20. If you did something against your own convictions for the sake of a friendship: did this friendship last?
  21. Can there be friendship without affinity in humour?
  22. What of the following do you consider essential to call the relationship between you and someone else a friendship?
    1. You have a liking to the other person's face
    2. You can let go in the presence of the other, trusting he won't tell others
    3. Political agreement
    4. The other awakes in you the sentiment of hope by simply being there, calling or writing
    5. Indulgence
    6. Courage to contradict you, while knowing and respecting what you can still bear
    7. You don't have to think about prestige
    8. Respect that both have secrets that the other is not aware of, and thus none is hurt when he hears about such a secret through others
    9. Closeness in matters of prudence
    10. If you meet by chance: happiness, as first instinct, though in principle both have no time
    11. You can hope for the other
    12. Certainty that each would want evidence before believing a bad rumor about the other
    13. Common topics of excitement
    14. Common memories that would be worthless without the other
    15. Thankfulness
    16. You are able to see each others wrongness without getting judicial
    17. No stinginess, in all its variants
    18. You don't hold each other to opinions that once brought you together, ie none of you needs to stick to old convictions out of consideration for the other
  23. How large can the age difference be?
  24. If a friendship passes, do you regret that it ever existed?
  25. Are you a friend of yourself?

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