How To Be Friends

I have deep satisfying friendships. But they are not quite what I expected they would be, back when I was a lonely person, longing for them. I want to talk about the expectations I had versus the reality I found in it.

I’ve always known a lot of people. In fact, in elementary school they called me a social butterfly. It was a bit of a backhanded compliment, as I was ALWAYS in trouble for talking. In spite of all that lifelong networking, always knowing who knows who, I still felt really lonely. I had trouble with emotional closeness, the thing that really is necessary for intimate friendships. I just didn’t know how to get it. I tried a lot of wrong approaches.

So, here are some things I wish someone had told me when I was just a little kid, trying to connect. It works for grownups, too.

Don’t create a fantasy relationship based on things that are out of your control.

If you have specific relationships with specific individuals that you want to be closer, there’s a good chance you’re going to be disappointed. Let’s say you want to be close with your sister.

Most of what happens in a relationship is outside of your control, so as hard as you work on how you relate, there’s a lot you’re going to have to let go of. Does your sister want to be close to you? Is your sister also working on her ability to relate? Do you have compatible personalities? Do you have a shared value system? Is she willing to be open to relating to you in a way that is comfortable for you? Are you willing to do the same for her? Do you trust her? Is she a safe person for you to be close to?

Do you even like each other?

These are things you will discover along the way, that is if she’s willing to walk it with you. But you have to let go of the outcome and just let the process unfold. Be willing to not force a relationship.

Deep friendship requires that we let people be who they are.

If you are thinking things like “if she would only do something differently, then we could have the relationship we should,” you are in for it. Should is the big killer. It means you’ve got an ideal in there that you are expecting someone else to meet. Close relationships require boundaries and clear expectations, but if you throw a should in there you will find that you’ve made a rigid spot that is gonna wear on that connection like a half size small ballet flat on your heel. Those shoes look cute, but they are not a long-term plan for the health of your body. And a rigid “should” isn’t a long-term plan for a close relationship.

On the reverse, do you want people setting expectations on your growth and what level of closeness you offer? Hell, no you don’t (I’m just giving you the answer to move things along). They have to be willing to let you be you, to work with your comfort levels, so you give them the same respect. You aren’t going to have closeness without equality and reciprocity.

Friendship of the deep kind must be between equals.

And that brings another point, if there’s a power imbalance that can’t be fixed, you will need to evaluate whether trying to be close is good for you. Being close with your boss, for example is a whole series of minefields. One way to evaluate whether it’s a safe prospect is to ask yourself “if the relationship falls apart, is one of you likely to suffer significantly greater consequences than the other?” And do you think you can truly be yourself in that situation, or are you having to do a lot of work to keep it from going sideways? You get to have privacy in your friendships, but if you can’t be authentic, then how deep can it really be? Just think about it.

There’s also going to be issues in this arena with some family relationships (looking at you, moms and daughters).

Deep friendships change because the people in them change.

As you work to adjust the way you relate to the world you will change. Your goals and needs will change, and what you will and won’t tolerate will change. You may find that you no longer want to be close to the people you thought you would. Before you even try out your new relationship skills and boundaries with this person you thought you wanted intimacy with, you may find yourself to have moved to a place where that no longer appeals.

Or as you develop you may grow away from each other. It grates on me when people say they’ve “outgrown” each other. There’s so much judgement in that. Just because one or both of you have changing needs doesn’t mean there’s been an outgrowth. And even if there has, why be a dick about it?

Some people just won’t want to be close to you, and that’s ok.

One of the best parts of all this relational work I’ve done is that’s it’s massively taken the sting out when people don’t want to be friends with me. And I don’t usually have to even speculate about it. I don’t lose sleep or wonder. Mostly. Any reason not to be my friend is a good enough reason for whoever holds it. No one owes me closeness. This place right here was excruciating for me to get to. I always wanted, nay, needed, everyone to like me. I was desperate for it. I made myself miserable trying to be liked by everyone. I made myself available to be taken advantage of. And it’s easy to say that I no longer want to be friends with mean people. But better, it is also easy to look at someone I would really like to be friends with and who just isn’t interested. It doesn’t get to me anymore because I feel very ok with who I am.

For those of you who aren’t here yet, looking at this equanimity and wondering what the hell you’re supposed to do with it, I will tell you. Keep trying. The equanimity is worth what you’re going through to get to it. It takes practice and unfortunately practice in this case means getting good at dealing with your hurt feelings, which means getting your feelings hurt a few times.

Deep friendship is rare, so don’t expect it to happen often. And that’s a good thing.

You can’t handle more than a few close friendships, anyway, so the fact that they are rare is such a good thing. It’s a nice romantic notion to think of love as infinite, but we exist in these corporeal meat suits that are very finite. We have finite amounts of time, energy, and lifespan. A really good friendship won’t drain your resources, and it’s not because it’s magical. It is because you will love each other and respect each other’s finite nature.

Good friends don’t have to be close.

There are so many kinds of friendship. Aristotle had a lot to say about everything, and a lot of it makes one cringe now, but according to his model, which is a good place to start. He described three kinds of friendship: utility, pleasure, and virtue.

• Friendships of utility would be like your work friends, business associates, and other that are not close, but prove beneficial to both of you.

• Friendships of pleasure are the people that you have a nice time with. Maybe you have shared hobbies, but they don’t know the secrets of your heart.

• Friendships of virtue are what we are talking about here today. They are the friendships that are deep, close, and most important on Aristotle’s view, they help you to be a better person.

Having friends that we just enjoy being around or that have mutual benefits, but don’t “go there” is perfectly ok. Perhaps those will develop a depth. Perhaps they will always just be people you enjoy spending time with. As I mentioned above, there are limits to the number of very deep relationships an individual can handle. We are finite humans, after all.

Bottom Line

These bits of wisdom were hard earned. Not only from my years of reading and writing and research, but through practice. After years of feeling lonely, I don’t. I have friendships that are intimate. I have close friends that I talk to every day, and others that I only see and talk to occasionally. But I finally feel secure in those friendship, and a great deal of that security comes from my security with myself. This all took a tremendous amount of patience with myself and with others to achieve. Not to make it all about me, but it totally is. Cultivate these qualities in yourself. Get ready for when you connect with the people who will be your close friends. You may already know them. They may surprise you.

Friendship is a huge topic and there’s a huge body of philosophical literature on it, but much to my chagrin, most people aren’t listening to philosophers. If you want a taste of the literature, visit this article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Philosophy has brought me a great deal of perspective on life’s issues, and I love tossing it out to you for a taste.