I have a new internet project! But then again, don’t I always?

Well, technically I have had this internet project for a little while now, but I have finally given it a proper home.

I started a TikTok called Whimsy Theories, which is basically a place for me to take the random systems and theories that my brain comes up with and turn them into something other people can actually think about.

You may have seen my Fantasy Style Theory post, where I divide aesthetics into seven fantasy archetypes: Princess, Goblin, Knight, Wizard, Dragon, Mermaid, and Angel. That one is probably my favorite I’ve ever come with but it is definitely not the last. That theory started with me thinking about fashion and eventually turned into a whole little world of archetypes, combinations, modifiers, and aesthetics.

Then I moved onto another fun little theory except this one focuses on friend types.

And that is how I ended up developing the Friendship Animal Theory.

To preface, it is loosely inspired by the Six Besties Theory by Alexandra Hayes (You can check out more of her work HERE, I especially enjoy her podcast on youtube which is a delightful advice column.)

So What Is Friendship Animal Theory (The Friendship Bestiary)?

The basic idea is pretty simple:

Different people tend to fall into different roles and dynamics within their friendships.

Not personality types. And, importantly, Not permanent identities. Not “you are a Hound and therefore you behave this way in every relationship.” Instead, these animals describe the role you tend to take on within a particular friendship or friend group.

You might be a Hound with one person and a Bear with another. Or you might have a very different dynamic with your childhood best friend than you do with your coworkers or your newest friend. And I think that is part of what makes this more interesting than a traditional personality quiz or something akin to that.

Friendships bring out different versions of us.

You might be extremely independent in most areas of your life but become incredibly loyal and sentimental with your oldest friends. Or you might be the responsible one at work but the absolute chaos goblin of your friend group.

The question isn’t necessarily “Which animal am I?” though I will add, that if you are one type of friend, there is a higher chance that that tends to be a role you have in other relationships in your life. These are relationship patterns that can be consistent but definitely aren’t the hard rule for how you relate to people. The idea is that friendships aren’t just collections of individual personalities. They’re little ecosystems.

And in an ecosystem, different creatures interact with each other.

Some relationships are nurturing. Some are protective. Some are complicated. Some become unhealthy. Some change completely over time.

Ask yourself: What kind of ecosystem are you creating together, you and your friends?

Sheesh that was a lot of yapping. Are we ready to talk about the actual theory now? I hope so, because here we go!

The Core Friendship Creatures

The first group contains the creatures that represent healthy or generally constructive friendship dynamics.

These are the Bear, Fox, Frog, Owl, Magpie, Rabbit, and Whale.

🦊 The Fox: Mischief & Adventure

The Fox is the friend who makes life more interesting. Their core, if you will, is mischief and adventure.

They are the person who says:

“Okay, but what if we just went?”

Fox friendships thrive on experiences and Exploring somewhere you’ve never been. Sometimes even trying something ridiculous. The Fox brings movement and curiosity into a friendship. They’re your spontaneous friend.

They’re often the reason a perfectly ordinary afternoon turns into a story you tell six months later.

The Fox reminds us that friendship isn’t only about emotional support. Sometimes friendship is about having something to remember and experiencing stuff together!

🐸 The Frog: Silliness & Humor

The Frog is the friend who makes you laugh.

Their core is silliness and humor.

Frog friendships are full of inside jokes, ridiculous conversations, funny voices, memes, terrible ideas, and laughing at things that absolutely should not be that funny. The Frog is also the friend who can make an ordinary day feel lighter.

They remind us that friendship doesn’t always have to be profound. Sometimes the most meaningful thing someone can give you is an hour where you forgot about everything bothering you because you were laughing so hard that you both cannot even breathe anymore. Truly healing.

The Frog brings fun into friendship.

🦉 The Owl: Wisdom & Perspective

The Owl is the friend you go to when you need perspective.

Their core is wisdom and perspective.

The Owl can help you step outside your immediate emotions and look at the bigger picture. They’re the friend who listens to the entire story before responding. Or they might ask the question you hadn’t considered. Or they might even gently point out that the situation you are currently convinced is the end of the world probably isn’t. We need these people badly in our lives to often ground us.

The Owl doesn’t necessarily solve your problems.

Sometimes they just help you see them differently.

🐕 The Hound: Loyalty

The Hound is the loyal friend.

So, as you could probably guess, their core is loyalty.

The Hound remembers who their people are. They do this by showing up. They check in. And they ALWAYS notice when someone is missing. They care about maintaining the bond.

The Hound’s love often looks like consistency.

It’s the feeling of:

“I’m still here.”

🐻 The Bear: Protection

The Bear is the protector.

Their core is protection.

This is the friend who wants to make sure you’re okay. They might walk you to your car or defend you when someone treats you badly. Sometimes they might bring you food when you’re sick or help you through a difficult situation without needing to be asked. They want to help, at the end of the day, and make sure you’re OK.

The Bear’s instinct is:

“Let me take care of you.”

At its healthiest, this is a beautiful form of friendship.

The Bear reminds people that they don’t have to handle everything alone. Sometimes you really do need someone willing to stand beside you.

🪶 The Magpie: Thoughtfulness, Sharing & Connection

The Magpie is one of my favorites because their friendship language is thoughtfulness.

Magpies notice little things. They always remember what you like. They are the kind of friends to see something in a store and think, “Oh my gosh, Brooke would love this.” Or they might send you a picture because it reminded them of you. They LOVE to give gifts and share things.

They collect little pieces of life and bring them back to the people they love.

The Magpie is about connection through thoughtfulness.

It isn’t necessarily about expensive gifts or grand gestures either. It can be as small as a snack you mentioned wanting to try or A funny rock you found on a walk. A common gesture is a book recommendation. Some days it’s just a message that says, “I saw this and thought of you.”

The Magpie says to their friends:

“I saw this and thought of you!”

🐇 The Rabbit: Encouragement & Enthusiasm

The Rabbit is the friend who gets excited with you.

Their core is encouragement and enthusiasm which makes them very fun to tell good news.

You tell them you want to start painting? They’re excited.

You tell them you got a new job?

They’re excited.

You have a weird little hobby you’ve become obsessed with?

They’re asking questions.

You want to try something you’ve never done before?

They’re probably already cheering you on.

The Rabbit helps other people believe in themselves.

They celebrate their friends’ victories, including the tiny ones.

They’re the:

“YOU DID IT!!!”

friend.

The Rabbit reminds us that encouragement is its own form of love. Sometimes you don’t need someone to give you advice. You just need someone who is genuinely excited that you are excited. They are the cheerleader friend and are amazing for it.

🐋 The Whale: Depth & Emotional Intimacy

The Whale is the deep friend.

Their core is depth and emotional intimacy.

Whale friendships often involve long conversations, vulnerability, shared history, and the feeling that someone really understands you.

You can talk about your childhood. Your fears. Your dreams. Or even your weird philosophical thoughts at 1 AM.

The Whale creates a sense of emotional depth but this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to talk constantly.

A Whale friendship can be quiet or even a long distance friend. It can be the person you haven’t seen in months but somehow pick up with immediately.

The important thing is that there is depth underneath the relationship. The roots go deep.

And Then There Are the Disruptive Creatures

Not every friendship dynamic is healthy. And sometimes, even perfectly good friendships can develop unhealthy patterns. That’s where this second category of dynamics and creatures come in.

These creatures aren’t meant to mean “bad people.” They describe behaviors that can disrupt a friendship ecosystem. And importantly, you can sometimes fall into one of these dynamics without being a fundamentally bad friend. Ouch, reflection. I am not always a fan of this but who is. But because of this, the disruptive creatures can be helpful in identifying the pitfalls we fall into, especially among certain friends and friendgroups. For example, I may fancy myself the hound friend because I’m soooo loyal but I can also be a spider or wolf where I can depend on people too much and have an “everyone else sucks” attitude.

Alright, I’ll chill with the examples since we need to go a little more in depth with these…

🕷️ The Spider: Entanglement & Dependency

The Spider represents entanglement and dependency.

This is when two people become so wrapped up in each other that the boundaries of the friendship start disappearing.

You may feel responsible for the other person’s emotions or you may struggle to do things independently. In some of my experiences, I felt like I had to constantly be available.

The friendship can become a web. The closer you get, the harder it becomes to move freely. This dynamic is combatted by the reminder that Healthy closeness still leaves room for two people to be separate individuals.

🐍 The Viper: Resentment & Criticism

The Viper represents resentment and criticism. Double ouch.

This is what happens when frustration starts accumulating underneath a friendship. Instead of talking about what’s wrong, you become increasingly critical. I know for sure, this is a dynamic that I have partipcated in.

Little things start irritating you. You keep score. You notice everything the other person does wrong. Eventually, the friendship can become full of little bites. And the difficult thing about the Viper is that resentment often doesn’t appear out of nowhere. There may actually be a real problem underneath it that should probably be addressed with apologies all around. The issue is that instead of addressing the problem directly, the resentment starts leaking out through criticism or quiet resenment towards the other party.

🐺 The Wolf: Isolation & “Us vs. Them”

The Wolf represents isolation and an “us versus them” mentality.

This is the dynamic where a friendship or friend group becomes increasingly closed off. There is 100% an inner circle and it is not open to the public, I assure you! There are outsiders.

And eventually, being loyal to the group can start meaning distancing yourself from everyone else. The Wolf isn’t simply having a close friend group. Close groups can be wonderful! But the real problem arises when closeness requires exclusion.

When “we’re close” becomes “we’re against them.”

🦅 The Hawk: Domination, Superiority & Competition

The Hawk represents domination, superiority, and competition.

This is the friendship where someone starts trying to establish themselves above everyone else.

Who knows more? Who is more successful? Who has more friends? Who is more attractive? Who is the leader?

The relationship stops feeling collaborative and starts feeling like a hierarchy.

The Hawk doesn’t necessarily have to be loud and domineering in an obvious way. Sometimes superiority is subtle. It can look like constantly correcting people, one-upping stories, competing over achievements, or needing to feel like the most important person in the room.

The Hawk can be combatted by the concept that friendship isn’t supposed to be a scoreboard.

🪱 The Leech: One-Sidedness

The Leech represents one-sided friendship.

One person gives and the other takes. And takes. And takes…

One person always listens. One person always needs help.

One person makes the plans. One person always has an excuse.

Of course, friendships aren’t perfectly equal every single day. Sometimes one person needs more support especially during difficult life phases. Sometimes someone is going through a difficult season and that’s all there is to it.

The Leech dynamic happens when the imbalance becomes the relationship.

There is no real reciprocity.

One person keeps pouring into the friendship while the other keeps consuming it. Signs you may be dealing with this is a constant drain from a friendship.

🦜 The Parrot: Gossip & Carrying Information

The Parrot represents gossip and carrying information between people. Oh boy, this is gonna be fun…

This is the friend who always knows something. And more importantly, always seems to have something to tell someone else.

“Well, she told me…”

“Apparently he said…”

“Don’t tell anyone I told you this…”

The Parrot can become the communication highway between different parts of a friend group. Information travels. Then Secrets travel. Comments get repeated that probably shouldn’t be. And then things get taken out of context. And suddenly everyone knows things they probably shouldn’t know and everyone is upset while the Parrot might shrug and think they’re simply a nuetral third party.

The Parrot dynamic reminds us that information is part of relationship trust.

Just because someone told you something doesn’t mean it was yours to pass along.

Principals

The Species Principle

The first rule of the theory is something I call the Species Principle.

And it is probably the most important one.

People are not species. Relationships are ecosystems.

You aren’t simply a Bear Friend™ who behaves like a Bear in every relationship you have.

You might be a Bear with your little sister, a Magpie with your best friend, and an Owl with a coworker you have slowly become friends with.

The creature describes the dynamic, not the person. This is why I don’t really think of the theory as a personality test (sorry if I keep repeating myself). The same person can behave completely differently depending on who they are with and I think that’s normal. That’s what makes people so layered and complicated sometimes, so it’s no wonder our friendships can ALSO be layered and complicated at times.

The Mirror Principle

We don’t just bring our own behavior into friendships.

We respond to each other.

A friend who makes you feel safe might bring out a more vulnerable side of you. And A friend who is constantly critical might make you defensive (naturally). A friend who is silly might bring out your own silliness.

Please don’t take this to mean other people are responsible for our behavior. It means relationships are interactive. You affect the ecosystem, and the ecosystem affects you. That’s why I don’t think these creatures should be treated like permanent identities.

Which leads into the Combo Principle!

The Combo Principle

Most people are combinations.

You might be a Hound + Magpie with one friend.

You’re deeply loyal to them, but you also love remembering little things about them, giving them gifts, and collecting memories together.

Or maybe you’re a Fox + Frog.

Every time you get together, something ridiculous happens, and you are usually the person who suggested the adventure in the first place.

Maybe you’re an Owl + Whale, where your friendship revolves around deep conversations and understanding each other.

The combinations are endless. And honestly, I think combinations are probably more representative of real friendships than trying to force everyone into one a rigid and hyperspecific category or animal.

The Transformation Principle

One of the most important ideas in this theory is that creatures can change.

A friendship isn’t frozen.

A Hound can become a Viper when loyalty turns into resentment. A Whale can become a Spider when emotional intimacy turns into dependency. Remember friends, the positive and disruptive creatures aren’t completely separate worlds. There are cases where the unhealthy dynamic is simply a healthy instinct that has been pushed too far.

That’s why I don’t want people to try and use these animals as permanent labels. They’re more useful as warning signs and lenses and probably best used in hindsight or reflecting, especially in cases where we may be in the wrong!

The Impermanence Principle

The final principle is that friendship ecosystems are temporary and changing.

People change. You change too actually even though you may not feel it.

People move, get new jobs, get married…

You discover new interests. You go through difficult seasons. Sometimes friendships grow stronger and sadly but realistically, sometimes they become more distant. And though I hate it when this happens, sometimes a person who was once central to your life becomes someone you see once every few years. It hurts but it is part of life. To quote the Ratitouille movie by Pixar, “Change is Nature”.

That doesn’t necessarily erase what the friendship meant. Some relationships belong to a particular season of life and, miraculously and amazingly, some evolve with you.

And Some end.

And that’s okay.

An ecosystem isn’t supposed to stay exactly the same forever.

Possible Additions to the Theory…

I do have a two additions I’ve considered for this theory…

I’m unsure how to add them though as they truly do feel like “nuetral” creatures that describe a specific type of relationship in people’s lives. So I’ll let you leave your thoughts on these in the comments.

The Cat 🐈

The Cat represents independence. I know, shocker.

This is the friend who loves their people but also really likes having their own little world. They might disappear into a hobby for three days. They probably are also very low maintence and do not need constant texting.

They can spend time alone without interpreting it as loneliness. And they generally don’t need their friendships to consume their entire life.

A healthy Cat understands that closeness and independence can coexist. You can love someone deeply and still have your own life.

🦋 The Moth: Rekindled Friendship

The Moth represents the rekindled friendship.

This is the friend you find your way back to.

Maybe you were inseparable in high school and then life pulled you in completely different directions. Maybe you had a falling out. Maybe you simply lost touch. Maybe years passed without either of you realizing quite how long it had been. And then, somehow, magically, you find each other again. There is something very moth-like about this kind of friendship and I love it. You may have wandered away from the light for a while, but eventually you find your way back.

A rekindled friendship doesn’t necessarily become exactly what it was before. Sometimes you discover that you have both changed too much for that. Instead, you get the strange and wonderful experience of meeting an old friend again as the people you’ve become.

The best Moth friendships don’t try to recreate the past. They make something new and good.

There is usually a little nostalgia involved. Old jokes come back. You remember things you had completely forgotten. You find yourself saying, “Oh my gosh, remember when…” But there is also a new layer to the friendship because you are no longer the same people who knew each other the first time around.

The Moth relationship can remind us that distance doesn’t always mean complete disappearance or even means the end of something.

Some friendships go quiet for a season and still have enough warmth left to be rekindled. These cases are rare but they’re oh-so-beautiful when they occur. You are truly blessed if you have a moth friendship.

So What Creature Are You?

Maybe the answer isn’t one creature. Most people aren’t to be completely honest with you. I’d be shocked otherwise.

Maybe you’re a Hound + Magpie with your oldest friend.

A Fox + Frog with your adventure buddy.

An Owl + Whale with the person you have all your deep conversations with.

A Rabbit + Magpie with the friend you are constantly encouraging and surprising with little gifts.

And maybe there are certain dynamics you’re trying to move away from.

Maybe you’ve noticed some Viper creeping into a friendship because you’ve been holding onto resentment. Or you’ve been slipping into Parrot behavior by carrying information between friends. It’s so easy sometimes, I’m sure. Especially among certain crowds and groups.

That is what I actually want this theory to be useful for. Not putting yourself into a very specific box with parameters and DEFINITELY not deciding that someone is a “bad friend” because they fit an animal. I would also add to not treat these as permanent personality types. Instead, I want them to give us a fun little language for talking about something that is actually pretty complicated:

the ecosystems we create with other people.

Because friendships are weird and nuanced.

Sometimes you’re the one bringing little gifts or encouraging people. There friend groups with which we’re the “class clown”. There are days where we’re the enourageer. And sometimes, if we’re being honest, we’re the one who needs to take a step back and ask ourselves what we’re contributing to the ecosystem. Which is probably why I like this theory so much.

It gives us a way to look at friendship without reducing people to personality types.

We’re not species. Our relationships are ecosystems (hit me if I say this again lol.)

And apparently I am going to keep making theories about them.

Stay tuned everyone and thank you for sticking around and getting through this so very long post!

Byeeee!