Arranged Friendship

Alador: You may choose a new friend from one of the suitable companions we invite.
Amity: But they're mean! Just because you work with their parents doesn't mean I have to like them!
Odalia: Good children don't squabble, dear.

— The Owl House, "Understanding Willow"

Alice and Bob hang out together and call themselves "friends", but only because their parents make them. Both sets of parents share the same social circle and don't want their children associating with the "riff-raff", whether that's based on class, race, or religion.

Friendships usually happen organically and can't be forced in such a manner without causing serious problems. This usually results in those involved becoming Lonely Among People, or they may adopt some rather toxic personality traits, since their "friendship" is based on self-interest and social status instead of True Companionship. At best, you get a Lonely Rich Kid who learns what real friendship is after they're given enough Character Development. At worst, you get an Alpha Bitch who drives away everyone, even their fake friends, because their social skills are just that bad.

When those in an Arranged Friendship are of the opposite sex, it's often used in a prelude to an Arranged Marriage, having either been planned from the beginning, or their parents having crafted their social circle to weed out "undesirable" candidates.

Compare Friendship Denial and With Friends Like These.... Contrast Defeat Means Friendship, The Power of Friendship, and We Used to Be Friends. See also Enlightened Self-Interest and Friend in the Black Market.

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Examples:

Anime - Manga

• In Spy X Family, agent Twilight is assigned to Operation Strix, in which he is to infiltrate the inner circle of the reclusive Donovan Desmond, to confirm or deny the possibility that Donovan is trying to restart the war between their nations, and who is known to only publicly engage with people outside his inner circle during functions of the elite private school where his two sons attend. To get close to Donovan, Twilight takes on the identity of Loid Forger, a married psychologist with a child, and he adopts Anya with the intent of having her become an honor roll student to get into the school function Donovan goes to with his oldest son. Since Anya doesn't have the grades to become an honor roll student, the new plan became having her befriend Donovan's youngest son, Damian as a way for Twilight to get closer to Donovan. Unfortunately, the elder Desmonds' parenting style and Donovan's sole focus in running the nation resulted in Damian becoming a self absorbed brat who has no intention becoming friends with a "commoner." Although it's heavily hinted that Damian may have some attraction to Anya, which he denies, Anya sees being Damian's friend as nothing more than a means to an end; specifically, if Anya helps Twilight/Loid accomplish his mission to "preserve world peace," then Twilight/Loid will see she's a good girl and keep her as his daughter and not send her back to the orphanage he found her in.

Comic Books

• In Girl Taking Over: A Lois Lane Story, teenage Lois Lane is allowed to relocate to National City for the summer so that she can take an internship with CatCo, but the catch is that she must share an apartment with Miki, the obnoxious daughter of her mom's best friend, who wants Miki to have at least one "normal" friend.
• In The Good Asian, when main character Edison Hark was a boy and his mother was a maid to a wealthy family, she pushed him hard to be friends with the millionaire's son Frankie, knowing that being friends with a rich white family opens a lot of doors for a poor Chinese-American boy in the early 1900s that would otherwise never open. Edison likes Frankie decently well, but resented being encouraged/forced to spend all his time with Frankie, and many years later as an adult recognizes that he has basically been manipulating and lying to Frankie so long he can no longer even distinguish what his real feelings are for his "friend".
• In Runaways, the titular team originally only tolerated each other because their parents were all ostensibly old friends who insisted on all the families gathering together once a year (as a cover for the parents performing an annual blood sacrifice for wealth and power).
• Super Sons: In the beginning, Damian Wayne and Jon Kent did not get along at all (Jon being a Nice Guy and Damian being an Insufferable Genius who hated the alien), but their parents Superman and Batman were not going to hear any protesting. Occasional insulting aside, the hatred dies pretty fast once they ended up on a mission — just like their dads.

Fanworks

Marvel Cinematic Universe

• In Lies of omission, Peter Parker's parents are not only alive, but rich and very classist. They don't approve of his friendship with Ned Leeds and MJ Watson, and try to have him hang out with Flash Thompson because his parents work with them. Neither Flash nor Peter like each other, but they agree to fake it because acting with open hostility isn't worth fighting their Control Freak parents over it.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• Vengeance of Dawn: When Twilight was a filly, some unscrupulous ponies tried to take advantage of the fact that Princess Celestia was her personal mentor. She had a friend named Scarlet Shine who kept asking when she was going to get to meet Princess Celestia. One day, Twilight asks her why, and Scarlet reveals that her parents had told her to make friends with Twilight so they would get to talk to the Princess. She goes on to say that Twilight is boring and an egghead and a loser.

Films — Animation

• The Swan Princess: King William and his friend Queen Uberta each had a child, Princess Odette and Prince Derek respectively, and they decide to try to arrange for them to marry not through an Arranged Marriage, but by having them meet together every summer in the hopes that they would bond and eventually fall in love. While the plan eventually succeeds and they fall in love when they become adults, their adolescent and teenage years are mainly filled with nothing but contempt and squabbling.

Films — Live-Action

• The Sixth Sense: Cole is forced to hang out with a classmate named Tommy, despite Tommy being a bully and a jerk. When Dr. Malcolm Crowe asks Cole about his friendship with Tommy, Cole responds by explaining that Tommy hates him and that his mother set it up. Despite this, Cole clarifies that he does not hate Tommy back, just dislikes being around him.
• Thoroughbreds: Though Amanda and Lily were genuine friends at one point, they grew apart when Lily went to boarding school, while Amanda is friendless due to her very off-putting personality. When Lily returns home, she invites Amanda to hang out and study for the SATs. Amanda, who has been reading her mother's emails, knows that Lily is charging (and haggling) over it. Lily denies it but Amanda says she doesn't mind, she just doesn't want Lily to pretend she's not charging. They have one other arranged meeting, before becoming genuine friends.
• Part of the backstory for The Truman Show involved everyone in his life, from family to potential love interests to friends, being pre-arranged and selected by producers. In a documentary about the fictional show's production, Marlon's actor described it as his mom telling him that he should go over there to a little boy and be his friend.

Literature

• The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein: Elizabeth Lavanza was seemingly brought to the Frankensteins to be Victor’s playmate. in reality, it was both in the hopes of keeping the increasingly dangerous Victor in line and for Alphonse to eventually take her family fortune before she could claim at 21.
• Deltora Quest contains a Perfectly Arranged Friendship: Jarred, orphaned son of a loyal servant, is given to the isolated prince Endon as his companion. Their devotion proves instrumental in saving the kingdom.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: In one book, Greg has a birthday party, but since he's not too popular at his school and doesn't have many friends besides Rowley, his mother Susan invites her friends' kids over. Greg doesn't know any of those guys, so it's quite awkward for him.
• In How to Train Your Dragon, Stoick wanted his son Hiccup, the Loser Protagonist, to befriend Snotlout instead of straw loser Fishlegs, but he later changes his tune due to realizing just how bad of a bully Snotlout is.
• Marrying Malcolm Murgatroyd tells the story of Hannah, who has been stuck with the geeky Malcolm for years because her parents are friends with his parents and because Malcolm is good with Hannah's brother Ian, who is ill with muscular dystrophy.
• The Penderwicks: Jeffrey is a Lonely Rich Kid whose snooty mother makes him hang out with the children of her rich friends, including Teddy Robinette, a bully whose idea of fun is flushing other kids' homework down the toilet.
• Le Petit Nicolas: One story has Nicolas' parents arrange a playdate with the insufferable know-it-all Teacher's Pet Agnan, clearly hoping his bookworm tendencies will rub off on their son. Naturally, the opposite happens.
• Ramona Quimby:
  • Ramona's mother wants her to be friends with Susan, the snooty Teacher's Pet, because the Quimby parents and the Kushner parents are friends, and don't seem to understand that Ramona and Susan dislike each other. In Ramona's World, Ramona's mother makes her invite Susan to her birthday party despite her protests that Susan will ruin it. She gets proven right when Susan makes a big show of eating an apple instead of cake and says that birthday cake is covered in germs, which starts a small argument among the guests. However, after Daisy calls her out for being rude, Susan breaks down crying and reveals that she knows nobody likes her because she always has to be perfect all the time, which helps Ramona understand her better and is implied to set them on the path to becoming real friends.
  • Ramona's friendship with Howie also starts out this way in the early books. In preschool and kindergarten, their opposite personalities make them prone to butting heads, but they have to spend time together because their mothers are friends. But in first grade, Howie introduces Ramona to the game of "brick factory," which they both enjoy. As a result, they bond and become genuine best friends, still slightly vitriolic at first, but less so as time goes on.
• The Six Times We Almost Kissed (And The One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe has Tate and Penny. Their mothers are lifelong best friends, so they've always been thrown in together despite professing not to like each other. One mother has just donated an organ to the other, so Penny and Tate have to get along while their mothers are both recovering from the operation. They're also suffering a degree of Unresolved Sexual Tension and keep nearly kissing, but refuse to talk about it with each other.
• Wagons West: Growing up, Toby Holt and Beth Blake were constantly being put together by their mothers in the hope that one day they would eventually marry, but instead they ended up dreading each other. It is realized later by their mothers that — had their relationship been allowed to grow naturally — they probably would have been attracted to each other, but by the time they are attracted to each other, one and/or the other had married someone else.

Live-Action TV

• In the first episode of The Inbetweeners, Mr Gilbert assigns Simon to help new student Will get adjusted to the school. Simon is mortified at having to hang around Will, but at some point he accepts him as the fourth member of his friend group, and by the middle of the first season, his best friend out of all of them (though that isn't saying much).
• In the first season episode of The Nanny "Sunday in the Park with Fran", Maxwell forces his daughter Grace (and Fran) to have a playdate with the obnoxious son of an equally obnoxious theatre critic in the hopes of getting a good review for his new production. It does not go as planned, with the boy's physical bullying of Grace prompting Fran to smack him with a baguette packed for their picnic lunch. Max arranges a meeting with the critic so Fran can apologize, only to lose his patience with the critic and tell him and his son off for their behaviour.

Theatre

• Dear Evan Hansen: Jared is very quick to remind Evan that they're "family friends," not friends. Jared only hangs out with Evan because his parents make him in exchange for paying for his car insurance, though he tries to ride his coattails when their scheme makes Evan popular.

Web Animation

• Helluva Boss: The season 2 episode The Circus reveals that this was how Stolas and Blitzo first met. Stolas' father, Paimon, essentially purchased Blitzo for a playdate with his son. Although Stolas ended up enjoying the encounter so far as to develop a crush on Blitzo, it is less clear whether Blitzo enjoyed or even remembered the encounter with the young prince.

Web Comics

• I Love Yoo: Shin-Ae's friendship with Maya and Rika is partially because Min-Hyuk told them to watch over her while he went to Chicago for college. Although his approach worked with Shin-Ae and Rika, her relationship with Maya started to get a bit rocky because of this.

Western Animation

• The Owl House: Amity Blight and Willow Park were childhood friends who were inseparable until Amity cut off ties and became a bully to her. In "Understanding Willow", it's revealed that Amity's parents threatened to ruin Willow's future if she didn't cut ties with her and start hanging out with Boscha and Skara because, unlike them, Willow's parents were neither rich nor influential enough for their approval. After revealing the truth, Amity breaks off her friendship with her girl-posse and starts hanging around Luz, Willow, and Gus (or "The Hexsquad" as the fans call them). However, Amity is still on good terms with Skara, even saving her life multiple times, and Boscha really did see Amity as a friend, and felt betrayed and jealous when Amity stopped hanging out with her.
• The Simpsons: A particularly insidious example is seen in "Pay Pal". When Lisa declares she is comfortable with not having friends, Marge, in her typical fashion, reacts overdramatically. Out of concern, she ends up secretly paying another second-grade girl to hang out with Lisa, thinking she is doing a good thing. When Lisa finds out, she is beyond furious, and even Marge realizes how far she overstepped. The two make up in the end, and Lisa tries to establish a normal friendship with the girl, but flees upon finding out that she is interested in eating raw horse meat.

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