The Best Kinds of Friends are the" Mean" Ones

Researchers in Psychological Science claimed that the best kinds of friends are the “mean” ones, this is after they found out in their study that friends like Dorothy of NBC's The Golden Girls - a friend who would say things that you don't want to hear and would push you to go out of your comfort soon - are more likely to be a good friend to reside in as they only want to help you without considering that people might hate them.

The Golden Girls is a sitcom that tells about the story of 4 mature women who live together in Miami, and experience the joys and worry of their golden years, the strong-willed Dorothy, spacey Rose, lusty Southern belle Blanche and matriarch Sophia.

"We have shown that people can be 'cruel to be kind'—that is, they may decide to make someone feel worse if this emotion is beneficial for that other person, even if this does not entail any personal benefit for them," Belén López-Pérez, a lead researcher and psychological scientist explained.

"We identified several everyday examples where this might be the case—for instance, inducing fear of failure in a loved one who is procrastinating instead of studying for an exam," López-Pérez wrote.

So if you have a friend like Dorothy, treasure him/her to the most as you can as there re only few people who really care for you and loved you. They may not seem and look worried but they actually care for you, and they only want you to be happy in the long run.

Photo courtesy: littlethings.com