Friends are good candidates for providing us with empathy because friendship provokes empathy. In fact, friendship, according to Sullivan, is how we become empathic. In his theory of chumships, he argues that around the ages of eight to ten, friendship radically alters how we relate to others. It’s the first relationship where we value another’s welfare as much as our own. As kids, when it comes to parents, we take. When it comes to teachers, we obey. But when it comes to friends, we feel for and with.
