Friendship: Drawing Attention to the Familiar

Friendship. For the first time in my life I’m recognizing what a loaded word it is. Like love, it’s a word that triggers a million different memories, expectations and emotions. Familiar yet ambiguous, hopefully we can all say that we’ve experienced friendship, but how different is our experience or definition of it? And, given that friendship involves at least two people’s different experiences coming together in connection, it is kind of miraculous how confidently we assume our ‘friends’ and our agreement in those relationships. I mean, have you and those you call friends taken time to discuss the terms of your connection? Have you laid out your expectations of one another: defined what you hope to gain from and give to the relationship? If you have, Bravo! I mean it. That’s amazing. It is more likely, however, that you have not and your belief in that friendship is anchored entirely on terms you’ve decided internally. Terms that may be quite different for your friend.

Truth be told, friendships are not simply a luxury in life. They are a necessary component. Modern psychology screams with evidence that a healthy psyche requires the bonds and belonging experienced in loving friendships. 

(Let me take a quick rabbit trail here and explain that I’m not referring to the social media version of friendship. Interactions, even positive ones, through social media sources do not create the same empowering joy-bonds in the brain as face-to-face connection. Online relationships have a place and a benefit in our lives, but cannotexist as a substitute for experiential relationships. If we want our brains to mature and grow, and to be emotionally healthy individuals, real human contact and connection is required.)

We live in a society where family units, or kinship, no longer makes up the foundation of an individual’s tribe. Sometimes we live too far apart. Sometimes there isn’t kin to lean into. Whatever the reason, friendships have become more and more important to our lives because they have become the core of our connections.

Strangely, a lackadaisical approach to friendship pervades. We have droves of books, workshops, etc., on how to thrive in marriage, how to parent well, or how to be an effective leader. But, ironically, not everyone will experience that type of relational bond. Friendships, conversely, are one of the most commonly experienced relationships. I was curious, so I did a quick Amazon search for books on “how to be a good friend” and found 3—not joking—3 books for adults on creating and sustaining meaningful friendships. Yes, other material on relationships can and should be applied to friendships. Most certainly. I’m simply highlighting the fact that there is so little attention on the one form of relationship nearly all of us will experience.

Perhaps the inattentiveness to their worth comes from the haphazard, sometimes accidental, way friendships are formed. Several examples come to mind.

What Brings People Together?

They Work Together—

This one can certainly be hit or miss on how well it brings people into relationship. But, similar to a school environment, a work environment forces people together and to interact with one another on a consistent basis. Continual, close contact has the potential to breed connection.

Their Kids Are Friends—

There are plenty of funny TikToks or other comedy sketches about this phenomenon. Our kids make friends, so we do. I’ve created friendships with a whole bunch of wonderful people based on my children’s friendships and activities. 

Humor—

I know this one might be too vague, but I’ve seen so many people come together by discovering they share the same sense of humor. Laughter is a powerful boding agent. When people exchange laughter, both joy and connection at the same time, they will look to repeat the experience. Voilà! A friendship has begun.

Shared Interests/Values—

Maybe the most recognizable reason friendships develop, this one is definitely less random than the others. Like humor, shared values and interests are a strong bonding agent. It gives a platform for connection: emotional, intellectual, and physical. 

Sometimes though, connection happens even more randomly. I have a personal example. One of the longest friendships of my adult life started by a chance interaction and this conversation:

“Do you have any friends?”

“No, not really.”

“Oh good, neither do we! Do you want to hang out sometime?”

Okay, so the background to this moment is this: my husband and I married very young, before most of our friends were even considering it. We had no married friends. Then, we found another couple our age and had this brief conversation. Which lead to a dinner together and then, a lifetime. Nine kids between our families and 22 years later, we’re still good friends. All from that ridiculously blunt conversation.

All this to say, even with the seemingly random or insignificant way in which friendships are formed, they ultimately have great significance in our lives. 

Not All Friendships are Created Equal

This quote and the poem it derives from, find their roots in a teachings from Aristotle on the 3 types of friendship (friendships of pleasure, of utility, and of virtue). I don’t want to rehearse his material, but I point it out because it evidences how long intellectual thought has supported the idea that there are varying reasons and degrees of friendship. Contemporary teachings define the variations on relationships/friendships using all sorts of visual aids. A common example is the concentric circles model. At the center is you and the group of relationships you consider your most intimate. It is, appropriately, your smallest circle because investment and connection at this level requires a lot of work. 

There aren’t enough hours in the day to bring everyone we know and love into this circle.

Then, the circles move out from there, with acquaintances and strangers being a much larger group, and farther away from our intimate core. A version I particularly like is called the “Circles of Trust”:

The reason I’m inclined to this one is because it offers an explanation for how the relationships are delineated: trust.

We’ve Come at Last to the Point

The Oxford Languages definition of friend reads as follows:

A person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection. Typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.

In other words, friends are people we have mutual affection for and people we trust. That’s vague enough to fit any version of friendship within it. But what makes my friendships, or yours, full of affection and trust? Who are we to each other? These are the questions on my mind. I want to be conscious of the way in which I’m a good friend, aware of the virtues I bring to the relationship that make my friends feel that bond of trust and affection. And I want to know myself well enough that I can articulate the ways in which I feel the friendship bond. 

I know people who would say that having fun together, getting out and doing activities they enjoy, would be their highest priority in a friendship. Others might say that dependability, that their close friends are available for them at the drop of a hat, is their most prized virtue in friendship. Still others might say that empathy is what they need, people in their lives who know them well and understand their heart. The list of relational virtues is long and friendships are as unique as the individuals they’re comprised of.

Which tells me they’re also easy to misunderstand and mis-use.

Given their value in our lives though, I think friendships and the people they involve are worth paying closer attention to.

It might be awkward, it might feel a little weird, but take a risk and sit down with those you call “friends.” Ask them what they enjoy about your relationship and what more you could do to strengthen that bond. Then, take an even bigger risk and share needs/desires of your own. It just might lead to a whole new, wonderful level of intimacy and friendship.