I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of friendship. The combination of 1) graduating college and 2) moving to another country has had consequences. New friends entering my life, new friendships forming. Other friends moving on, following their own adventures and dreams, our friendship fading. Still yet other friends, people for whom it does not matter how far apart we are, because I hold them close in my heart, as they do me. It is the nature of life, I suppose, that people come and go in our lives. Saying goodbye, drifting apart, brings a little nostalgia, and wistfulness, but I strive to accept change. Each person is a gift, time with them precious, and I appreciate them and the time spent together, before we part. How can I be only sad, when I know each new adventure brings new people into my life?
I don’t know why some friendships fade, and others remain strong. Does it matter? The nature of friendship is not clear-cut, has no single definition or description. There are people who I see and talk to only once or twice a year, and yet my fondness for them remains steadfast. There are other people, with whom I would be quite disappointed, if we spoke only infrequently. This is one of the aspects of the nature of friendship I’ve been contemplating. Why do I have different expectations of different people? Why do I respond differently to the same action (or inaction) by different friends? I don’t think this is a Kat-trait, either; I believe this is true of most people. I’ve decided the reason lies in emotional intimacy, and emotional investment. If I am invested in a person, emotionally, then that person has a greater ability to hurt or disappoint or anger me. When we invest part of ourselves in someone, we then develop expectations of them, which invites disappointment. I can also be good friends with someone, but still choose not to be emotionally intimate with him/her, which means my feelings are protected. I think this is at the heart of our different kinds of friendships. So, friends can hurt us, when we are intimate with them, when we invest in them. Expectations cannot help but lead to disappointment, so suffering, and it is damnably difficult to be emotionally intimate without developing expectations! These expectations, though, are, in a way, unfair. Each person is different, and will define what friendship means a little differently than everyone else. I know what friendship means to me, what I expect of my friends, and what I expect of myself in terms of how I treat my friends. However, my friends don’t necessarily define friendship the same as I do, and the discrepancies between our understanding of this relationship friendship and our resulting expectations also lead to disappointment, misunderstandings. That is the second part of expectations = suffering.
It is not just the dissimilarities in our broad definitions of friendship, though, that lead to suffering. Our understandings and interpretations of individual relationships also lead to incongruities. Consider a tier-system, in which we place our friends at different levels: the higher the level, the closer they are to our hearts, and the more we expect from them. If I place someone at a high level, giving them trust and intimacy, and devoting more of my time and energy to maintaining our friendship. However, what if that person does not reciprocate equally, but instead places me at a lower level, in their own tier-system? Then he or she would not expect to invest as much in our friendship. I could be disappointed by him/her, and he/she could feel uncomfortable with my actions and expectations. Our positions could obviously switched, too. So this is yet another way in which the contrast between our interpretations of our friendship leads to suffering.
Of course, most friendships, in my experience do not lead to lots of suffering. I think this is because we tend to form close friendships with people whose ideas of friendship are similar to our own. For example– I am generally a reliable person, and I honestly have very few flaky friends. Those that I do have, well, I am fond of them, but I find I cannot fully invest myself in them, when I know that I won’t be able to withhold expectations. Is that their fault for being flaky, or my fault for imposing my own definition of friendship on them, for holding them to standards that I set? Does it have to be anyone’s fault? Why should I judge them as being “bad friends”, when that judgement is based on my values, and my expectations?
Obviously, these questions are semi-rhetorical.
I resolved many years ago that time is precious, and I want to share it with people whom I love, whom I am close to. This doesn’t mean not being friends with people who are different from me, or people whose understanding of friendship is different than mine. My conclusion, then, is to enjoy having lots of friends, and creating many different kinds of friendships with them. I am decidedly uninterested in trying to force anyone to follow standards I set. That sets us both up for suffering, which I don’t want for myself, or anyone I care for. Again, since I cannot not experience expectations, I cannot be emotionally intimate with everyone to the same degree, but why not accept that, accept people as they are, and create from there?
P.S. You probably noticed I talk a lot about “expectations” and “suffering”. My perspective of the world, and my personal opinions are strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism, which is very concerned with these.