Certificate of Friendship Type Bureau of Relationships
A scrapbook-style collage of friendship snapshots: matching bracelets, ice cream cones, a pair of white sneakers, a bowl of popcorn, two bicycles, an origami fortune teller, a blank postcard, and two friends walking and sitting together by the water, framed with tape and hand-drawn hearts and stars.

Certificate of Friendship Type

to be completed in your own hand

Processing time: 7 min Items: 30

No sign-up. Issued the same day.

This certificate is issued based on a 30-item test and identifies which of five facets this specific friendship currently draws on most. The bearer receives a classification, a supporting record, and a seal. Processing time: 7 minutes. The method rests on established measures of friendship quality, applied to one named friend rather than to friendship in general.

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When you needed practical help, how did it usually come from this friend?
Who usually ends up proposing what you and this friend do together?
How much have you actually told this friend about yourself?
Think of a genuinely hard moment. What part did this friend play in it?
Has this friend ever told you, without being asked, what you're good at?
In a moment of real urgency, how reachable was this friend?
Do you look forward to time with this friend specifically, or is it just another plan?
Has this friend ever noticed something was wrong before you said anything?
After time with this friend, do you usually feel better than before?
After a setback, how did time with this friend leave you feeling?
Outside the usual hours, how reachable has this friend actually been?
Do you and this friend end up doing things you wouldn't do alone?
Once you've confided something private, does this friend bring it up again later?
In an unfamiliar or intimidating situation, did having this friend along change how it felt?
When you share good news, how does this friend usually react?
When this friend has promised something specific, how has it actually gone?
How does your mood usually compare before and after time with this friend?
How comfortable are you letting this friend see you at less than your best?
After venting to this friend about something bothering you, how did you feel afterward?
Has this friend spoken well of you to someone else, not just to your face?
Has an actual disagreement or rough patch happened between you, and what came of it?
Do you look forward to plain, unplanned time with this friend, or mostly the big occasions?
Even over text or a call, does this friend pick up on something being wrong?
After a stressful scare, did being in touch with this friend leave you steadier?
For smaller, everyday good news, not just big milestones, how does this friend react?
When this friend has helped, has it ever actually cost them time or effort?
After hanging out once, who brings up doing it again?
How comfortable are you letting this friend actually see you upset?
Waiting on uncertain news, did this friend's presence change how it felt?
After a visible mistake or embarrassing moment, how did this friend's reaction leave you feeling?

The certificate will be issued in this name. Leave it blank to issue it to the bearer.

About This Certificate

What this test measures: which of five facets — reliability, shared energy, closeness, steadiness, or affirmation — one particular friendship currently draws on most.

Test author Editorial Staff

Rate This Certificate
4.9/5

Attachments

Attachment 1. Methodology

Thirty items are spread evenly across five sides of one friendship — reliability, shared energy, closeness, steadiness, and affirmation, six items each — and this certificate names whichever side the thirty answers add up highest on. The other four are not thrown out; each keeps its own place on the scale, shown right beside the one printed on the certificate.

Rather than ask how good a friend the bearer is in general, every item asks about one actual, chosen friend.

How an actual disagreement gets handled plays no part in the total. Work on close friendships keeps finding that the raw number of arguments two people have says very little on its own; what tends to matter is whether a falling-out gets smoothed over or turns into lasting distance. Scoring the count of disagreements would have punished the wrong thing, so that dimension sits outside the five that are scored here.

Everything else scored here still comes from one side: what the bearer noticed, received, or did. None of it can confirm what's actually going on inside the friend, and none of it can say how long the friendship will hold up, or what ought to happen with it from here.

Background on how friendship is studied as its own kind of relationship, and on what tends to separate a strong friendship from simply having a lot of acquaintances, shaped which five facets this certificate scores.

This is not a diagnostic instrument.

Attachment 2. Frequently Asked Questions

Is fighting with a friend a warning sign?

Not by itself. What predicts a friendship's staying power isn't how rarely two people clash but whether a clash gets worked out or just left to harden into distance. Because of that, disagreements aren't part of what this certificate scores.

Does this certificate confirm that my friend values me?

No — it only has access to one side of the friendship. Every item here reflects what the bearer went through, picked up on, or felt; nothing about what's going on inside the friend was ever part of the input, so nothing about that is part of the output either.

Should this friendship be kept or ended?

That question is outside what a certificate like this can answer. It states which facet the current thirty responses favor most; it does not forecast where the friendship is headed, and it does not tell the bearer to walk away or patch things up. Whatever happens next is the bearer's call, not a form's.

Why did one facet score lower than the rest?

Because the other four simply landed higher on this round of answers, not because that facet failed some threshold. All five sit on the same page, side by side, so the lowest of the five will always look modest next to the others — that's a function of comparing five numbers, not a mark against the friendship.

Attachment 3. References
  1. Mendelson, M. J., & Aboud, F. E. (1999). Measuring Friendship Quality in Late Adolescents and Young Adults: McGill Friendship Questionnaires. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 31(2), 130–132. doi:10.1037/h0087080.
  2. Bukowski, W. M., Hoza, B., & Boivin, M. (1994). Measuring Friendship Quality During Pre- and Early Adolescence: The Development and Psychometric Properties of the Friendship Qualities Scale. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 11(3), 471–484. doi:10.1177/0265407594113011.
  3. Rose, S., & Serafica, F. C. (1986). Keeping and ending casual, close and best friendships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 3(3), 275–288.
  4. Faur, S., Leggett-James, M. P., Kaniušonytė, G., Žukauskienė, R., & Laursen, B. (2023). Perceptions of relationship quality that predict friendship dissolution during childhood and adolescence: Social support matters more than negativity. Developmental Psychology, 60(3), 560–566. doi:10.1037/dev0001676.