The effect of closeness on friendship

Pure proximity is perhaps the most decisive in determining who will become friends.Our friends are likely to live nearby.Although it is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder,it also causes friendship to fade.while relationships may be maintained in absentia by correspondence ,they usually have to be reinforced by periodic visits,or they dissolve.Several researchers decided to investigate the effects of proximity on friendships.They chose an apartment complex made up of two-story buildings with five apartments to a floor.People moved into the project at random,so previous social attachments did not influence the results of the study.In interviewing the residents of the apartment complex,the researchers found that 44 percent said they were most friendly with their next-door neighbors,22 percent saw the people who lived two doors away the most often socially,and only 10 percent said that their best friends lived as far away as down the hall.People were even less likely to be friendly with those who lived upstairs or downstairs from them.