A Middle Aged Man’s View of Friendship

A recent event in my life, nothing Earth shaking or devastating, has got me thinking about and challenging my notion of friendship.

If I open up my Facebook page it says I have 253 friends.  Wow, that seems like a big number.  

What to make of these Facebook “friends”?

In a moment of quiet I ask myself this question, are these people really my “friends”? Or are they mere acquaintances, someone that I spoke with a few times, maybe we share a hobby or pastime? If I have a problem, a family crisis and I ask them for help, will they come to lend me a hand? Would I even ask them for help?

Is that even a fair question?

What defines friendship?

Is it a willingness to help without the expectation of a returned favor?  On the surface that seems like a fair statement.

That question spawns another question.  Am I setting my expectations for my friends too high, demanding more from my friends than they are prepared to give?  And vice versa.

Maybe I am, maybe friendship is simply enjoying each other’s company, nothing more, nothing less.  In a word: companionship.  To paraphrase, I like doing things with you because it’s more fun doing them with you, than alone?  I remember a comment that a friend’s mother made when I was nine or ten years old.  She said, “I love it when you two are together, you just make each other smile.” 

Friendship can’t be that simple, can it?

It has to be more than that, right?

Is friendship better defined by shared experiences and time together? I am one of a group of about 17 of my high school classmates that shared our first day of school and our graduation day.  We started kindergarten and finished high school together.  I have spent countless hours with these people.  Nine of us lived in a five block radius, all boys.  We did everything together: Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, baseball teams, birthday parties, delivered papers, went on double dates, fought,  attended the same churches, worked together….on and on.  13 years of daily contact.

Are my classmates friends?  They certainly pass the shared experience test.

Aa ha, I am on to something here, that’s friendship!

My high school class is holding our 30th year reunion in a month.  Like many of you, I am a transplant to Florida.  My high school and the bulk of my classmates live hundreds and hundreds of miles away.  I have not seen, had contact nor spoken to most of them in 25 plus years.

At the upcoming reunion I will have the opportunity to walk into a room filled with my long lost classmates.  I am sure I will not recognize some of them without the help of a nametag, yet many would say we are friends, good friends, childhood friends.

With that said, I do not know anything about what has occurred in their adult lives.  I will be clueless about their families, where they live, what they do, their successes, their failures, their future, and know only a small part of their past.  Do they need help?  Would they ask me if they did?  Would I help them if they asked?  Thirty years ago, in a heartbeat!   Today, I dunno.

Are they still my friends?

Does friendship expire after some predetermined amount of time with no contact with one another?

In contrast, I have work colleagues that I spend 40-plus hours a week together and have done so for seven or eight years.  I work with them on a daily basis, traveled overseas with them, know about their families, shared in their successes and failures.  We have shared experience, I know a great deal about them and yet I don’t consider them friends.  In fact, some of them I prefer not to associate with outside of the work place.

So the shared experience test doesn’t seem to work as a definition.

I decide to do some research to find a definition of friendship.

I found this, "What is a friend? A single soul, dwelling in two bodies" - Aristotle

Interesting, even thought provoking but not a very satisfying answer for me.

Maybe a better question to ask is what makes a good friendship?

My answer: similar interests, sympathy, empathy, mutual respect and trust, with the keys being mutual respect and trust.

I seem to have asked a lot of questions and not delivered a lot of answers.

This I know:

When shared with a friend, hobbies, passions, and good times are much more fun!

The bad times, the hard times aren’t as bad or hard.

Friends challenge and support one another.

When I need a hand they are there for me and me for them.

Truth can be shared between friends; even when it’s a truth that’s hard to deliver or receive.

Friendship is not a one-way street.

You have to have a friend to be a friend.

Build your friendships on mutual respect and trust. 

Respect and Trust!  Respect and Trust!

Good friends are indeed a rare treasure.