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human
CMV: Friendships are reciprocal, and you should only put into a friendship as much as you're going to get out of it

I had a discussion with someone recently, and we were talking about the nature of friendships.

I am of the opinion that you should only put in as much effort into a friendship as the other party/parties are putting into it. For the sake of your own mental health, I don't think that it makes sense to be devoting a lot of time and effort to give emotional support to someone who isn't going to be able to return the favour, particularly when the friendship is just starting to develop. For someone who is a long time friend, I'd be more inclined to stick around through the tough times, but there isn't enough incentive for me to be a pillar of support to someone who is a new friend. I believe that at the end of the day, we only have enough mental capacity and time to care about a few individuals, and it isn't beneficial to us to be spending these resources on people who can't or won't reciprocate. This is also where I'd like to draw the distinction between reciprocation and transactions.

Transactional relationships are ones where one or more people in the friendship are specifically looking to gain something out of the friendship. For example, if I were to make friends with someone who is taking the same classes as me in school specifically with the intention of being able to gain notes, but also being willing to offer academic help in return. There is an actual sense of obligation to the transactional friend to provide a certain service.

Reciprocal relationships, on the other hand, are ones where multiple parties in the friendship willingly contribute to the relationship, not because they are forced to or bound by obligations, but simply because they appreciate the other person and they want to repay the favour as well.

My opinion is that good friendships are reciprocal, and that both parties are going to be putting in as much time and effort as the other person. It's mutual care, not one-sided.

The other side of this is a "sunshine and rainbows" type of friendship in which one person is not actually contributing to the friendship, but yet is gaining a lot of support and is draining the other person. The person who isn't getting anything out of it might stay in the relationship in the name of "friendship", but to me this is undesirable as it will take a toll on the person's mental health with no guarantee of ever getting any returns out of it. I think that people should not invest time into such friendships as there is no value to them for such a friendship.

I'm open to seeing things a different way, CMV!

EDIT: After getting a few responses I think it might be necessary to clarify my stand on the idea of transactional friendships. Instead of framing it as reciprocal versus transactional friendships, I am more of the idea of trying to frame the actual argument here as friendships in which you get as much as you give, versus friendships in which you are getting less than you give. Both transactional and reciprocal friendships would fall under the former.
gpt
What about when your friend is going through a bad time? Let’s say they just lost a family member to an early death. Surely they need you to support them extra for a while with no expectation of reciprocity.  

To turn friendship into a scoreboard watching game means friendships end when they are needed most.