Aristotle on Friendship

Paul Wadell makes the comment that "everyone wants to be happy, it is the great longing with which we are born and with which we die." (67-68). It is how we are to start to go about achieving that happiness that Wadell concerns himself with during this chapter. In the first section, he summarizes Aristotle's attempt to construct the polis as that community in which all must participate in order to become virtuous, and thus happy. However, Aristotle, after years of reflection, intrusion of the realities of society, and the teaching of others, comes to realize that the polis is not capable of providing the relationship necessary for virtuous living. This is when he turns to friendship. In the second section of chapter 3, Wadell discusses the three types of friendship that Aristotle defined. Aristotle defined the three types of friendship as:
1) Friendships of pleasure; those friendships which are based on the attraction of each friend to the other due to the pleasure that they each receive,
2) Friendships of usefulness; those friendships which are based on the attraction of each friend to the other due to their mutual gain from each other and,
3) Friendships of character; those friendships which are based on the attraction of each friend to the other due to each one's goodness and virtue.

He goes on to say that the third type of friendship is more important than the other two, although all three are still friendships and needed in a fully lived life, because the friendship is based on something which, during the friendship, can do nothing but grow and flourish, which leads the two friends to continue their attraction to each other all the more. However, Wadell then goes on to say that this third type of friendship is the one which leads us, as humankind, to the ultimate, although unattainable, goal of happiness. Is this truly the ultimate goal of humankind? How do these ideals of friendship fit in with other views of friendship and love? Is it possible that none of these types is more important than the others? Are these types of friendships stepping stones for each other as well as the ideas of eros and agape?