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Fun implies some utility. I like being around the friend because we’re doing fun stuff, like partying or joking around.

Joy means that whatever we do, I am simply happier because I am with the person. We could be doing non-fun stuff, like filing boring paperwork or the friend could be visiting me in the hospital cause I broke my leg, and I am in a lot of pain, but the mere presence of the person brings me joy.

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A naive top of my head explanation: joy seems like something that’s been developed from a friendship that could’ve been roughly labeled by one/multiple of author’s categories. Basically, you feel joy only because you’ve spent time gossiping, confiding, having fun together (etc.) in the past, and at those stages, the relationship would be frameable by some of these categories

Another argument to be made is that, let’s say after having a positive shrooms trip, many people feel joy being with other people even strangers. But that kind of joy doesn’t seem to be a significant sociological force in the western society, which is here being examined

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