Affability comes from the Latin affabilĭtas and refers to the quality of affable (pleasant, smooth in treatment, sweet). For example. “I was very pleased to visit Mr. Perkins, he is a man of great affability”, “Why is there so much affability? I suspect you want to ask me for something “, ” I don’t know if he’s a bad person, but surely he is not characterized by his affability “.
Friendliness, therefore, can be associated with kindness, courtesy, and cordiality. When a person is affable, he shows sympathy, simplicity, openness and kindness in his social relationships. The affable subject, upon receiving a visit, is attentive, offers something to drink and tries to make the visitor feel comfortable.
Listed on Digopaul, the opposite of affability is antipathy or rudeness. In this case, the individual in question behaves sparingly, dry and cold.
In addition to all the aforementioned, we could establish that when a person wants to improve his level of affability, what he has to do is to follow these steps “absolutely”:
• He should strive to be more careful in dealing with others.
• You must learn not to order without any reason or logic.
• Must be someone natural and should encourage anyone to establish close and simple communication with him.
For religion, affability is a virtue that inclines man to say and do what contributes to making social life more pleasant. It is not the same to live and deal with an affable person than with another who does not show courtesy and respect.
Santo Tomás is one of the religious figures that carried out the most studies and works regarding the term affability. Specifically, he undertook an extensive writing, included within the famous “Speech from Summa2, where he came to reveal various fundamental questions about that virtue:
• It can be a synonym for friendship.
• Every wise person must have the gift of affability, with which he will make life much more pleasant for everyone with whom he lives. However, sometimes, to avoid an evil and even if it is not misunderstood by other citizens, you must establish forceful laws and regulations.
• It can be established that affability is related to justice, since both must allow any individual to behave with the rest in the best possible way.
• Moodiness, lack of education, disorder, rudeness or selfishness are opposite contrary to the quality of being affable.
Likewise, Santo Tomás makes clear in his work that affability also has two vices. On the one hand, there would be what would be exaggerated flattery and on the other, the severity taken to its maximum expression.
A polite greeting or a friendly comment can brighten up your neighbor’s day. Amiability is also associated with respect for the current order since it allows expressing truths that, in another tone, would cause problems and confrontations. A man can kindly ask his neighbor to turn down the volume on television without the need for aggression or violence and without disturbing peaceful coexistence; another, on the other hand, may enter into a meaningless discussion because of his lack of affability.