Jay and Nick seem to have something in common. They seem satisfied with their lives but still have not exactly reached to being the person that they want to be. They also try to create a friendship that will benefit them and help them reach the person that they want to be or just get a specific thing that they want.
The reader can clearly see that Jay tries to use this new friendship with Nick to his advantage. He knows that Nick knows Daisy and Jordan explains what Gatsby wants him to do. Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy over and that way Gatsby can come over to Nick's house as if he has been doing this for some time. This way he will be reintroducing himself into Daisy's life. Although Gatsby is surrounded by a lot of people I belief he is really lonely and one reason is that he possibly feels that he has lost Daisy. The awkward, almost embarrassed, way in which he first acts around Daisy can be interpreted to be nervousness of having to talk to someone that he has liked for quite sometime but knows that she can't be with him. Nick even tells him, "you're acting like a little boy." And this nervousness is like that nervousness that children have when they start experiencing a crush on someone.
Nick might also be using Jay for the purpose of becoming something greater than the person that he is. Nick always talks about how he IS a very well-rounded individual, or at least the reader gets to see that he tries to be this person. By going to Gatsby's he is getting to know all sorts of people and making himself known to these people. With this he continues his "quest" to become a great, maybe even famous, person that people will admire or want to get to know. Just like Gatsby. Except without the negative rumors and comments that people talk about him.
There are signs and other examples that can support the idea that Jay's and Nick's friendship is just something that is meant for them to take advantage of each other in a way that they only care about what each will get from this friendship, for themselves. But there are things that also lead towards a genuine friendship. Gatsby seems to enjoy spending time with Nick and he is always inviting him to go visit someone or just go out on the town.
Both still have all these secrets that it is hard to make a definite decision whether their friendship is true or if they have an ulterior motive, that may or may not be of good intentions.
Couldn't it be true that Nick is only hanging around Gatsby because of what some have called his similarity to a "politician?" Couldn't it also be true that there friendship may have started out as a means for self=gain, but eventually grew into a genuine friendship?
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