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Monday, January 7, 2013

Gotta Have Friends

It is a word that has been so overused that it has no meaning anymore. When someone could have hundreds, if not thousands of "friends" on Facebook, the very nature of "friend" has been so diluted as to be meaningless. Originally, the definition was a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations. Today, if it means anything at all, it has come to mean not an enemy or opponent. Many today confuse "acquaintance" with "friend," abrogating personal boundaries altogether. And, as suggested by the definition above, when a "friend" becomes a partner by marriage or intimate relationship, that title is invalid in that context.
So what is a friend? Usually it is men who have the most difficulty with the concept; they typically have few people they would call "friend,"  and even less they would consider a "close friend." Women have less problem, although they may move from one friend to another as the years go by. (Yes, many women have been blessed with a "best friend" from childhood, but in our transitory society today that is less so.)
Mark Twain defined a friend as "Somebody who knows all about you and likes you anyway." The whole idea of a friend, you see, should be something to do with trust. (Which is why this dichotomy of love/like, friend/lover misses the point.) A friend is someone we can risk being open with. A friend cares enough that when we are uncaring or careless, the connection survives.
This will not be the case with everyone we meet, no matter how hard we try to make that connection. Simply because a person is from the same town or state as ourselves, or shares a common interest, went to the same school, has the same name as someone we once knew, has a peripheral family connection, does not signify that there might be some sort of friendship in the offing. Simply because there was a friendship of some sort in the past does not guarantee a relationship today.
Instant friendships are the most dangerous of all. There wouldn't be enough time to get to really know each another, to make real any connections beyond the passing attraction. (This is why it doesn't work when a relationship begins sexually before all concerned know who the other person really is.)
The ideal, of course, is to combine the two options: To like the person you love, to have your friend be your lover. It is possible. The advantage is that those times when you don't like the other person, you still love. (And vice versa, of course.)
Does this mean every friendship needs to be at that extreme? Of course not; there are friends at numerous stages of life, meeting the numerous human needs we all have.  But they have this in common: both sides are present and open.

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