Disclaimer: Don't read into any of this too personally. This isn't really subtly directed to an individual person. Just random thoughts about friendships spanning back a decade or two. It is not my intention to make anyone feel guilty. We are all busy so if you haven't talked to me in the last 6 months, I am sure you and I both have good reasons.
Disclaimer 2: Usually I proofread what I write on blogs and emails but I am tired so if you see a grammatical error, just ignore it. I didn't spell the word "lose" like "loose" so I think you may be able to still sleep at night.
Lately I have been talking a lot with people about friendships. One of friends best described it as having layers of friendships. I have friendships that I call my "functional" friends because I only see them at functions. Now there is the new phenomenon of Facebook and to be friends on there requires me having had talked to you precisely one time in my life. Sometimes people friend request me and they don't even meet that requirement. I generally ignore those people.
Chris once defined a friend as someone who would volunteer to pick him up from the airport if he was coming in from out of town. I saw who Chris' true friends were when his father died and his two best friends from church came to the visitation. And when he decided to roof his house. His small set of friends can be counted using both hands. There really isn't a black or white. It is what it is.
I don't find my women friendships to be the same. I won't go into the quaint "pick up from airport" definitions that I had because they all have failed me. Women are busy. Women are too busy. Women are too busy to have the good quality friendships that my husband has. I am a believer of God, family, ministry, others. And I have decided that we are so busy that if we have too many "others" in your life then they are all going to get shafted because you can't divide the little time you have left between them to do any of them justice. I have fallen victim of this for sure.
So if we can't be close friends with everyone, then we have to decide who to be close friends with. Some of these are just natural. I am still bestest friends with my college roommate which I still chuckle about because I was the world's worst roommate. glad she loves me anyway. I think we have a very comfortable relationship. Every once in awhile we get together with our families. Every once in awhile we email. Every once in awhile we play date. Every once in awhile we babysit. I believe that neither of us thinks that anything is lacking in our friendship. But what if there was and I didn't know it? Would she tell me? Would she say "Hey Amanda, it really hurts my feelings that you don't email me once a week"? In which case I would reply but but but...you dont' email ME once a week. In fact you hate email..so why are you saying this to me? See, I know my friend well enough to know that she wouldn't say that to me. If there is something that I do that makes her feel bad, I have no idea what it is.
But not all friendships are that easy. Sometimes I feel like I work incredibly hard at friendships. Sometimes I feel like the person doesn't actually want to be my friend at all. Sometimes I am friends with people just because God wants me to be. And when they don't treat me well, I suck it up and be obedient to God having no idea why I am doing what I am doing. It doesn't seem like it has a purpose. And sometimes I know that the person doesn't even know that I don't think they treat me well. And sometimes I can be just as bad about my own pet peeves.
So what defines a friend to you? Am I your friend? Am I one of your best friends, a close friend, an acquaintance, a functional friend, a Facebook friend? Do you think that I feel the same way about you? You don't have to answer the questions of course.
So what am I looking for? I want my friends to be respectful, loyal, courteous. I want them to act like they care. Victoria called me when I was stuck in the hospital with my sick kid. She also calls me at other times just to see how I am doing. I don't deserve Victoria as my friend cause she's too awesome and I aspire to be a better friend to her. Amanda Y and Shelley have both babysat all 3 of my kids for hours at a time in addition to their own. Completely awesome. Gwyneth let me and my family crash her house for a week. Angela takes me out on much needed Girls Night Outs. Barbora delivered my baby..you can't really top that. And there are many many more friends that have done completely awesome things for me and if you are reading this blog, then there is a good chance you are one of them because I don't broadcast this blog too much. So don't be offended if I just now didn't mention you.
So what's your opinion on what I should with all the other friends? Should I put up with abuse because it's the right thing to do? Should I keep trying even though they are inconsiderate of my feelings? To give them credit, I don't think they are trying to be inconsiderate.
So to have good friends, I need to be a good friend. I don't think I have been the best friend I could be with many of my friends. A lot of friendships have changed because of distance or circumstances but some I have dropped the ball. With my remaining 7 months of 2010, I have some personal friendships goals that I would like to attain. I would like to respond to emails and in a timely manner. I would like to reciprocate kind things that people do for me. Honestly, I am one of the worst people in the world to bring meals to people. I have good intentions but good intentions in my head don't count for squat. I would like to invite more people over. I would like to respond better to people that would like to have me over. I am not an insanely busy person so usually I am able to work something in the same month people ask. Ooo that's another pet peeve that I need to make sure I don't do...casually mention at a party "We should have you guys over for dinner". To say that means that you/I should actually follow up with an actual dinner invite. I don't know how many times I have been guilty of that but I know that it happens to me.
So what your thoughts on the friendships that you have in your life? Feel free to leave out the stories that you have about your hypothetical friend "Miranda" :)
9 comments:
I'm mostly with Chris on criteria for friendship, and would note something i read somewhere, possibly dave barry, that real friends help you move.
In an effort to be as sanctimonious as possible, I'll suggest judging friendships based on what you'd do for them as well -- the tiers i can imagine would be:
I would take a bullet for that friend.
I would take a bullet in a non-essential, non-genital area for that friend.
I would pick that friend up from the airport, even during rush hour.
I know that friend's middle name and home town, and would feed his cat even if it's ugly.
Below those are the 'acquaintance,' 'facebook friend,' and 'stranger that looks familiar' levels of friendship.
The main difference in male and female friendships that i can see is maintenance -- strong male friendships don't really wither significantly with time and neglect, it's easy to pick them up and put them down as life or geography dictate.
I would say i have one hand of really close friends.
You know what the problem with women is...they think too much. The fact that I have been thinking about friendships and then further wasting my time blogging about them has affirmed my already drawn conclusion that I am insane.
Your post made me laugh Evanda. Thanks for the humor. :) I am going to try to spend the summer not trying extra hard with my friends and see what happens.
I guess I have friendships that follow the male model because I wander in and out of people's lives with thoughtless abandon.
I think friendships are created through spending time together but I think they are maintained by mere mutual affection. There have been times when 6 months or a year has gone by between seeing you but I have never felt unable to just pick up where we left off.
I don't think a friendship can be defined by an exchange of goods and services.
I am secure in all my college friendships. You can all move to Zambini and I know that I will still be friends with you when you get back. The church I go to however is really weird about friendships. You can be best friends with people while you are in the same Sunday School class with them and then if you leave the class, then you never speak to each other again except to say hi in the halls. I have only a small handful of friends that would keep up with me if I left JFBC altogether and I am grateful for those friends. So my friendship thing has more to do with my church than anything else.
So when I talk about exchange of services, I am talking about those friendships at church where I feel like I should actually show them that I care and would like them to return the feeling and when they don't, then I wonder if they like me at all.
I know my college friends like me even if I never bring you a single casserole. :)
This is an awesome, but painful, post. You bring up some great points.
I also have FB friends and the only criteria is that I have met you one time. Or maybe we were in middle school together. Or our kids took a ballet class together. Or you taught Sunday School one time with me. The extent of concern I have for these people is that when they make a post that something really bad is happening I might type "praying for you." Sadly, that doesn't usually mean I am actually praying for them.
When I first started FB, I was so ashamed that I only had a double digit number of friends and I was so awed by people who had over 500 friends. I think this goes back to my high school desire to be "popular."
FB has also caused me some pain because sometimes it makes me feel out of the loop. Our neighborhood pool just had a pizza and cupcake party for the opening day. Apparently a bunch of the women in the neighborhood were asked to bake cupcakes for the party, but I wasn't. The reason I knew about this is because they all started talking about it on their FB status updates. My high school "want to be popular and liked" side was hurt that I was not asked to make cupcakes. Of course my busy side was kind of grateful that I wasn't asked - it is one less thing I would have had to do.
Or when people I know have a party and post pictures of it. I can see who attended and know I was not invited. This is another sad moment on FB for me.
My comments are too long to be contained in one comment, so I am breaking it up. I also have "hallway" friends. That is, we talk when we run into each other in the hallway. This morning I was freezing during the church service, so I refused to stay in there - I really need to write the church and explain how it is so cold in there. Well, I wanted Catherine to go to Lil K, so I read a book for awhile then I wandered around the church.
I ran into Laura, who was soothing her newborn son Luke. I helped her rock him, with some success. Laura is a nurse practitioner who works on the nuerology floor at Egleston. She has worked in the past for a NICU, a children's PACU (post anesthesia care unit) and for Catherine's nuerosureon's office. So, every few months when we talk she "dumbs down" the medical speak for me and helps me understand what is going on with Catherine.
So this morning we talked about Catherine's recent failures at sedation and the risk of putting her under general anesthesia every 3 months for MRI's. She gave me some good ideas to talk with the oncologist about before we agree to put Catherine under general amesthesia. She also explained what was going on when Catherine was unable to be sedated.
This was an invaluable hallway meeting. I helped her because she was unable to soothe Luke and he seemed to like my swaying better. And she helped me with her medical knowldege.
So, what kind of "friend" is Laura? It is hard to say. She has brought me a meal and I would bring one to her, although I never have - even when she had 2 kids. We have had them over for dinner. She has called when we were in the hospital to check on us.
I am not sure I should group friends into different tiers - because it would limit the friendship. And friendships evolve. There are times when certain friends are more valuable to me than they normally are. And I am sure vice versa.
One type of friend that is particularly painful for me is the situational friend. While we were in a certain situation, we are very close. Once that situation ends, the friendship ends. Like a job, or school.
I had friends with certain jobs that I spend 8 hours a day with for years. Once we left the job, we never spoke again. I have tried to reach out to these friends, but with mixed success.
Some of these people I have been very close to, due to the amazing amount of time we spent together. Yet, I must have meant actually nothing to this person if they could just ignore me once I am not in the same office space with them?
Victoria, I am totally with you on the FB thing. I have just learned to ignore when people have a party and I am not invited. I am spending less and less time on FB so I miss a whole lot of posts anyway.
Since I have written this post, I have found some very clear direction on a friendship that was borderline. I have finally decided that I can't take it anymore and am going to back off. If she wants to contact me, then I will respond. I don't dislike her. But I am not going to pursue having any relationship with her. And I feel a much better peace now that I have come to this decision. I have never dropped a friend before so it's kind of weird for me.
I have never dropped a friend before either - I guess I think I need tons of freinds and can't risk losing one. But I did also want to comment on one thing you said in your post - that we cannot invest lots of energy in 25 different friends. Then they would all be shallow friends. We would be spread too thin. It would be better to focus most of our energy on just a few friends. Maybe we are only meant to have a handful of very close friends and then a lot of acquaintances.
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