Question:

I’m not sure whether you know Lorenz, Eibesfeld and behavioural science (Verhaltensforschung?). The compact version would state that humans like many other animals have a couple of instincts that help guide their behaviour among which are food-, sexual-, binding-instinct and the ones responsible for curiosity and aggression. Having said that it’s important to remember that the instincts guide behaviour and do not command it (you like to eat a fine desert but you can opt not to if you wish so). In any case, I rate a lot of what my contemporaries at the uni call ‘friendship’ under binding-instinct…
However I’m not entirely sure how self-esteem fits into the equation.
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My answer:

I don’t believe that something like instincts exists. I think that man has certain needs which make themselves known by a feeling of displeasure if they are not fulfilled. Maybe this is what you meant by “instinct”, but I wouldn’t call it that way because the term “instinct” is very unclear in its meaning, and has been used in many non-legitimate ways. It is, furthermore, quite dispensable to human behaviour, I think.

What you call “bonding instinct”, I would call the need for visibility. Every human being needs to recognize itself, its deepest values and sense of life, in the conciousness of another, i.e. they need to feel understood and visibile to other people.

If you don’t have self-esteem in your dealing with other people, then no true friendship on equal terms is possible. That is because in a way you don’t see people as equals, but as some sort of higher metaphysical power, which controls reality (or is miraculously effective in dealing with it) and which you don’t understand.

You either feel intimidation or contempt; you either desperately want to cozy up to them and be awarded the grace of their attention, in order to feel safe — or you try to manipulate them in order to gain some sense of control and safety over your life. You either try to make yourself their undeclared serve, or you try to make yourself their master. It is not possible to call this true friendship. Rather, it’s a kind of relationship that tries to fake friendship in order to compensate the self-esteem deficits of both parties involved.

What I want to say: Such a friendship is not built on shared legitimate values, but on “ego-values”, i.e. it serves as a defense-mechanism to create and maintain pseudo-self-esteem.