I’ll never forget Jennifer Isenhood. I was four and three-quarters and it was our first day at school. She had a round face, short thin hair with a cow-lick at the fringe and she bounced right up and asked if I would be her friend. Being that forthright would never have occurred to me. Jenny was five and a quarter.
“Okay.”
And that was the start of a friendship that lasted well into our teens, with me a sort of loyal Tonto to her swashbuckling Lone Ranger.
Eventually we developed completely different interests and aspirations and drifted apart, but the thought of Jenny and the adventures we shared still lifts my heart. I often wonder about contacting her after all these years.
Few people keep in touch with their best friends from childhood, but it does happen. A good friend of mine, now 67, has kept one friendship going since she was four years old.
I can’t help feeling slightly envious. Such a longstanding friendship seems like a wonderful security blanket to have in life. Even if most of the time you don’t see each other and don’t think about it, it must be comforting just knowing it’s there.
But friendship has another side too. Like the terms ‘motherhood’ or ‘family values’, ‘friendship’ can conjure up warm and fuzzy images of something noble or even self-sacrificing. And just like the other two concepts, it has some murky depths and the potential for pain.
Who doesn’t remember the heartache caused by falling out with a friend, particularly in those fickle, factional school years? Ouch. Somehow the rare times when the gang turned nasty or the best friend dropped you for someone else can be brought to mind much faster than the invariably more numerous good times.
One of the great things about friendship is that we choose it, which makes it different to most of our other relationships. But it does require knowing when to bite your tongue. At its best it’s full of give and take, live and let live, and wonderfully free of the obligations and rules that apply to family or work relationships, for example. At its worst we can find ourselves back in something like the button-pressing emotional blackmail that families do so well.
WHAT IS FRIENDSHIP?
Here are just a few definitions: “a single soul dwelling in two bodies” (ancient philosopher Aristotle); “the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words” (English novelist George Eliot, aka Mary Anne Evans); “the spirited inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him” (19th century philosopher Ralph Emerson); and, simply, “love made bearable” (American novelist Rita Mae Brown).
What do you expect from friends that you don’t expect from acquaintances? I polled my friends. “To remember what is important to me, to respect my interests and values,” said one, at the time offended by another friend who continually forgot her birthday. “To give me support and listen when I need it, even late at night at odd hours sometimes,” said another. Other responses included “acceptance of me as I am, with all my faults”; “to be discreet about confidences shared”; “insight, frankness, and the benefit of the doubt”; “to share tequila, personal stories, empathy and understanding”.
For myself, the ideal friend is someone with whom I can be as comfortable as I am when I’m on my own (which is pretty comfortable), with whom I can be at ease in silence, and who won’t be offended if I have to take a walk or a nap or read a book. It’s also, very importantly, about being able to share some secrets and have them stay secret, and in that I know I’m not alone.
WHAT MAKES IT GROW?
In the largest survey ever on the subject of friendship, covering 40,000 people, the US magazine Psychology Today found most people regarded loyalty and the ability to keep confidences as the most important components in friendship, followed by warmth, affection and supportiveness.
Being able to disclose your inner world – the fears, dreams, joys, aspirations and anxieties you wouldn’t want most people to know – and to have that part of you accepted and respected, even treasured, can be an enormous gift. And it’s what fosters a relationship. Once one person has confided in another, the way is open for the other person to share a confidence too, and so it goes back and forth and each time the pair grows a little more trusting and a little closer.
Everyone needs a friend like this. In fact, confiding in the right person can have benefits for your emotional health in much the same way that psychotherapy does. In psychotherapy the guarantee of confidentiality is essential in order to create a safe space where anything can be said and where all parts of you are allowed to show up, sometimes for the first time in your life.
Ideally your trust will be rewarded and you’ll receive the nourishment of knowing that at least one other person can handle your feelings with care.
DIFFERENT STROKES
Sociologist Graham Little, after interviewing a host of people about friendship, decided it could be divided into three categories – Social friendship (the most superficial one, basically at the level of belonging to the same club or workplace), Familiar friendship (operating like a mother-child nurturing relationship, with one party offering all the help, comfort and continuity) and Communicating friendship (the deepest one, reciprocal, unthreatened by our desire to just be ourselves, accepting us as we are).
Among researchers of the subject, the ideal one, Communicating friendship, is regarded as something we share with only a few of our friends. No matter how many acquaintances we have, they say, most people will only have between three and seven of these very close friends.
According to Graham Little, Communicating friends share a similar idea about friendship, are surer of their own individual identities and don’t need the constant reassurance that other friendships might.
“Communicating friends are built for change and for dealing with shame and what the world calls a fall from grace,” he says. They speak to the child in each other and “are partners in our still being kids, with everything in front of us, everything open to us or at least thinkable by us.”
WHAT ENDS A FRIENDSHIP?
Respondents to the Psychology Today survey nominated “feeling betrayed” as the most important reason for ending a friendship, along with discovering incompatible views on an issue they considered extremely important – for example, finding their friend held racist views they couldn’t tolerate.
But reasons for ending don’t have to be as dramatic as that. Many friendships just have a natural use-by date. They come and go at different times in our lives through different jobs and interests and life stages.
Other turning points that can cause friendships to founder or fade away include marriage or a new lover (as you’ll know if you ever couldn’t bear your friend’s new partner), the arrival of children, divorce, debt, favours, illness or a change in status that leads to insecurity and jealousy.
There’s no need to feel guilty if you leave a friendship you find unsatisfactory. Life’s short. Maybe you realise you just don’t have the energy or the time for this particular friend any more, even though the person is still perfectly okay with you. Maybe you’re not getting much nurturing in return.
COMPETITION AND ENVY
You’ve heard it before but it has to be said in this context too: The first person anyone needs to make friends with is herself. Yourself, myself, ourselves. These are the people who become Communicating friends (see Different Strokes, above) and are the ones who will still feel okay regardless of having friends who are more attractive in looks, more stylish, higher-earning, popular and so on. Knowing your own strengths and that you have qualities other people would like to have too is the greatest protection against envy. Be a good friend, live and let live and wish even more good looks, money and status for them.
BEING LIKED
Overall, the people we like the most are the people who like us, who cheer our successes and wish us many more, and enjoy the ways in which we are different from them. Good friends don’t need us to need them but they empathise when we hurt. They love us enough to (gently) give us an honest appraisal of how they perceive us. They are tactful without being false. They ground us, make the world a warmer place and provide those deeply gratifying moments when we feel truly known.
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