Question 1

The main areas in the Advice Forum are Friendship Advice with the subcategories of Problems, Making and Keeping Friends, Friend needing support, and and discussion ideas. There is also a More than Friends advice section that includes the areas of More than Friends? which offers Sexuality advice and Relationship advice. I think that these areas reflect the challenges to friendships well. There seems to be a common knowledge that is shown in the chapter and in the advice forum that friendship can encounter problems just as romantic relationships or any relationship with another person. Sometimes friendships are looking to cross over into a romantic relationships which can also cause problems. Challenges to friendship such as distance as a physical barrier that can cause problems for those who can't make the time to talk on the phone, email, etc. Friendships that might have been strong while two people lived in the same area code, may become weak when one person moves away due to the challenge of staying connected. In the advice forum many people are disclosing their experiences with these challenges, and there is a particular focus on those who have romantic feelings for their friend. One interesting part about this that I noticed is that it seems that some romantic feelings that evolved out of friendship seem to have even stronger emotional connections to the person because of the level of intimacy they have with that person. Examples are knowing someones deepest darkest secrets from the trust and acceptance that we have in our friendship with them. I was sad to see  thread titles such as the one "I have no friends". That might be something the person felt comfortable disclosing on a web page, but it might be harder to do so in real life. We don't usually walk up to people in a coffee shop or at work and say "Hello, I'm Jane and I have no friends. Would you like to be my friend?". Many people on the site are also looking for a pen pal which shows that they are challenging the idea that you have to live close to maintain a friendship with someone.