Plymouth friends in Best Friend of the Year UK

Your best friend is more likely to criticise your new hairstyle or your weight, than to reveal your partner is cheating on you. These are the findings of a new survey, examining 1,700 friendships across the UK in 2015.

Just 29% of people would tell a best friend if that friend’s partner had been spotted doing something bad. However 54% would admit to disliking a best friend’s new hairstyle, with a further 58% prepared to share concerns with a best friend who had recently gained weight.

Meanwhile, just 30% of people would speak out if they had been offended by something a best friend had said.

The results have also revealed some striking statistics on friendship values: 78% of people considered loyalty to be one of the most important qualities in a friend, whereas generosity was deemed important by only 24% of respondents.

Despite enjoying a reputation for friendliness, only 11% of Yorkshire residents see their best friend every day, as opposed to 23% of people living in the East Midlands.

Although more than half of respondents consider either their parents or siblings to be a best friend, the figure was lowest in London, where less than 40% consider their parents to be best friends. When asked how many close friends they had in total, however, Londoners appear to be the most sociable people in the UK. On average, those living in the capital have 4.4 close friends: significantly higher than the national average of 3.7.

The survey was undertaken by tombola, the sponsor of ITV Loose Women, which recently launched a campaign to find the Britain’s Best Friend of the Year.

The winner will be announced by Loose Women presenters at an awards ceremony on 8 June.

Dawn-Elizabeth Howe, Head of Marketing at tombola, said that the findings showed just how much we value our friendships:

“We were surprised by a lot of the findings, given how highly we tend to value friendships throughout childhood and into adult life. In the UK we have a strong reputation of priding ourselves on being polite – the survey is a nice reflection of this. Your best friend might not tell you if they don’t like your hair or if you’ve put weight on, but that doesn’t mean they don’t value your friendship. It shows that friendship is more than skin deep.”