Contemplating Friendship

I’ve been contemplating the idea of friendships a lot lately.

Merriam-Webster defines friendship as 1) the state of being friends 2) the quality or state of being friendly.  In my opinion this vague definition makes the idea of friendship no clearer than a cloud.

Truthfully friendship has really been on my mind since my move to Tennessee.  I’ve been utterly “friendshipless” (locally) for the past year or so.  Since college it seems that those I’m closest too are those who are furthest away.  I can’t begin to count how many days pass that I wish those friends were closer, that we could share life’s moments in person rather than electronically.  I crave it.

I have to admit that I find it fascinating how much more difficult it is to develop new friendships as an adult.  It seems as if the human race tends toward growing more guarded, less available, and less interested with age.  We become too wrapped up in our own lives and too distracted in our attempts to keep up with the Jone’s.  I do confess, while claiming to be locally friendshipless, that I KNOW a ton of people.  These people, in general, are people who I like and who like me back and who I hang out with – but I do not necessarily have friendships with these people.  Does that sound harsh?  Let me try to explain.

I in fact do many things with many people.  I bowl with people, talk to people, eat with people, have drinks with people… Many of these people are nice, fun, interesting people – but they are only friendly acquaintances.  In other words, I do not maintain what I consider to be “friendships” with the vast majority of them.  They are not people who know me deeply.  They are not the people who will be my ear to listen,  shoulder to cry on, or share a coffee to laugh over.  They are not the ones in my life who are willing to go out of their way for me, who genuinely want to know how I am.  Friendships, to me, are the few people in life you meet and no matter the distance, the inconvenience, the time between conversations – you can, and would, call about anything and they would be there for you no matter what.  They are the people who make the time, recognize your needs, know your secrets – they are the people who see and understand who you are inside and out – they are the people who truly love you.

I have found in my searching for more meaningful local connections that most people I’ve encountered prefer the “friendly acquaintance” type of relationship.  Maybe it is because they feel safer, more in control.  After all, if you don’t bare your soul to another you do not have to face it yourself.

The problem I’m facing is that I want to bare my soul and I yearn to have people in my life who trust and respect me enough to do the same.  I want to have deeper connections than menial conversations and outings.

We may not want to admit this openly, or even to ourselves, but we humans want people to know how we are feeling, what we are doing, and we want people to care about that.

Facebook is the #1 website in the world.  How much clearer can it be that the world’s population is searching for attention?  We spend our days surrounded by people on crowded streets, in office buildings, at shopping centers, and in our homes.  Nevertheless billions of people, standing right next to each other, use this virtual forum to cry out to the world and say “HERE I AM! THIS IS MY LIFE, PAY ATTENTION!”  People seek conversation, a place to share their story and ideas and to be listened to – yet so many seek this only within the confines of an online interface, a place they can guard their secrets and show only their best side.  Because of this,  Facebook will never entirely fill the void which so many seek to have filled.  It is simply a Band-Aid slapped on an epidemic of loneliness.

We are designed to understand loneliness, to feel it, and to have the desire to quench it. 

We are designed to feel the need share, to seek counsel, we long to lay our burdens and our joys before one another. 

We are gifted with the ability to comfort, to encourage, to support, to forgive, to love.

I feel as though so many among us take that for granted.  There is value to friendship – to embracing the people around you as God would.  In John 15 it says “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” 

I believe God put an innate desire for this type of relationship in all of us.  We need this not only to connect with our fellow mankind, but to connect to Him.

I concede that there are very few people most of us will ever encounter in this lifetime who we might even come close to experiencing this level of love for – to lay one’s life down.  But why not try to find it?  Why not seek out this type of love and work for it?  Why not attempt to have a friendship this deep, this intense, this complete?  Why are so many of us so afraid, so alone?