On the nature of friendships...

A funny thing happened on the way here. We live in a world that is so connected and we can get in touch with someone all the way around on the other side of the world at the tap of a button on our phones. Yet, we find ourselves being more lonely than we have ever been. Every day, we see articles in popular media and consciousness about how individuals are having trouble connecting. This runs the gamut from men and women having difficulty on the dating scene, to trouble with platonic connections with others with similar interests. It seems so dichotomous that we have the capability to connect with each other easily, but have so much trouble actually connecting. This issue is compounded as we get older and into our senior years, with a lot of seniors living out their golden years in isolation. With younger people, we also see the problem with our youth often not seeing each other as people, but as anonymous screen names. This leads to cyberbullying and a generation that is growing up with the inability to truly connect at a deep level with each other.

More capable and educated people than I have studied and written about this topic in great detail, and I only want to explore the nature of true friendships and how I have fostered them in my own life. I come at this from the perspective of a Gen-Xer. I grew up without an actual phone in my household until I was in high school. Therefore, my connection with my friends was heavily limited to when we could actually be in each others’ physical presence. Additionally, we moved around a fair amount, so my friendships as a youth were at times broken for years until we reconnected once again as adults. This in and of itself is problematic, as I found myself not developing close friendships until well into my adult years when I was able to stay in one place for an extended period of time. The friends that I did grow up with were based on similar interests and activities. There was always a competitive nature to our friendships with each of us trying to top the others. I have examined this competitive nature in friendships as one of the toxic traits that are personally detrimental to my connections.

In college, my close friends came from two avenues. I had my academic and social connections through my belonging to a fraternal organization. I also made my initial foray into the world of martial arts, and my friendships and connections came from the common struggles alongside my fellow martial artists. The connections from both of these have resulted in deep and long lasting friendships throughout my life. However, I would qualify that my friendships forged in the heat of the martial arts arena, have and continue to be my strongest. This is simply due to the fact that I am still deeply and regularly practicing martial arts and a part of the martial arts community. I am not as active with my fraternity and am not up to date with my brothers from that community. Therefore, it stands to reason that the nature of friendships in a lot of ways has to do with the recency and freshness of the interaction. The universe changes, and people grow, evolve and change as well. This means that the person you are today is not the same person that you were 10 years ago. Therefore, your friendships that have developed in your past, and disconnected from, may not be as close if both individuals have changed and grown beyond that particular time in their lives when there was a mutual closeness.

I posit that close friendships are predicated on the hard work that has to be done on both sides of the relationship to preserve and foster it. Not only that, but it requires a commonality in order to initiate the relationship in the first place. The commonality generally comes to extroverts easier than to introverts, as they are more willing to step outside their shell to enquire about the interests of others to find those commonalities. Alas, that leaves introverts with a challenge of being uncomfortable enough to discover those commonalities. Therefore, as we get older and set in our lifestyles, especially if we don’t actively participate in social or group activities, we find it harder to meet people and learn about those commonalities that could spark friendships. In our increasingly connected world, we find ourselves deeply engrossed in viewing the world through the lens of a mobile device, and therefore less prone to step into an environment where we are outside of our comfort zone. This inevitably leads to increased isolation and a lack of a true human connection.

Even when we use electronic means to connect to other humans, for instance through various romantic or platonic apps, we typically want to attract others to us. This means that we present an idealized image of who we are to prospective partners or friends. We never truly become vulnerable enough to show our neurosis or our imperfections. In my opinion, this is the flaw in these electronic means of connection. On the off chance that we do make an initial connection with another individual through an app based on their physical and verbal descriptions, we are uncertain of how truly matched we will be. More often than not, these connections don’t result in long term relationships or friendships. In my opinion, true friendships require significant work to be done by both parties involved in reliability, honesty and kindness. I will explore each aspect in turn. 

Firstly, the factor of reliability is entirely dependent on the initial commonality that brings two friends together. If both agree that they have something in common and actually want to foster that connection, then they start working on becoming someone that each other can rely on. This can be anything from meeting regularly and connecting over an activity to being present in each others’ lives during significant life events. By doing the work to be present and active in each others’ lives, we show that we care about each other. We show that we accept each other in spite of the little imperfections and choose to go through life together. This is why it is difficult for friendships to continue through significant time and distance spent apart. I’m not saying that physical proximity is necessary to foster friendships, but we have to do the work to be in the lives of the friends that we care about and it makes it more challenging to do so without physical proximity. We have to ensure that we have regular contact with our friends through other means like phone calls and social media. Regularity is the key to showing that we are a reliable support in each others’ lives.

Honesty is absolutely crucial in the creation, fostering and preservation of friendships. It goes without saying, but we feel a true sense of injury or betrayal which sometimes manifests physically if someone we care about is dishonest with us. Typically, there are many reasons for our dishonesty with our friends or loved ones. We may not want them to view us in a less than stellar light, or we may not want to hurt their feelings. All of these reasons are typically ego driven. In order for us to be completely honest with our friends, we have to first be honest with ourselves. We have to do the hard work of looking inwards and discovering true selves. We have to come to terms with our own imperfections and love ourselves in spite of them. This is, of course, a lifelong journey. When we have become honest with ourselves, then we care less about how others view us. We can then be honest with our friends and loved ones. We can accept that sometimes honesty can lead to hurt feelings and others viewing us in a less than stellar light. However, if we are vulnerable enough to expose our true selves, imperfections and all, to our friends and loved ones, we can find true friendships that will last. It is in those situations that we will find that friendships continue despite numerous disagreements and even fights because both parties are fully open and honest and see each other for who they truly are. Both parties choose to accept each other in spite of their individual imperfections.

Once two friends see each other on a deeper and more honest level, they can then be kind to each other. Kindness is the third component of preserving friendship. Oftentimes, with surface relationships, we find ourselves dealing with toxicity in a group setting. Especially among men, I have found that we are uneasy with being vulnerable with our friends. Additionally, we are also told to stuff our own feelings and insecurities deep and not expose them in a macho hypermasculine society in which we live. I believe this is an insidious culture that is not good for people to develop deep and lasting friendships. If we are not kind to each other to allow for non-toxic sharing of feelings and insecurities with each other, we will continue through life with low self esteem and other mental health issues. Friends are key in helping us go through life with a good support system and healthy companionship. However, unkind friends can be detrimental to our physical and mental well being. Typically kindness stems from mutual support and caring for each other, and toxicity comes from a power dynamic where one individual has an ego that encourages them to appear superior to another in a group setting. We have to do the hard work to kill the ego and be vulnerable and caring to our friends so that we have a lifelong healthy relationship.

We have to step outside of our personal bubble and comfort zone to meet people and connect with them. Through doing the hard work of being a regular and active presence in the lives of our friends and being reliable, honest and kind, we will find that our friendships will grow to be rewarding and healthy for the rest of our lives. As we age, we will find that our work of preserving the friendships that are healthy for us will sustain us and keep our physical and mental health. Like everything else that makes us better individuals, it requires work and effort. However, it is well worth it to do!