The theme
of this article is this: "Friendship is
a verb."
Last year I "friendshipped" with two
former colleagues in Arizona. I used some
spare time around a conference I was attending in Phoenix to have
dinner with one, coffee with another. I
had not seen either of them for about
20 years, even though I have kept in occasional contact with them with phone
calls.
Yes, I know how awkward using friendship as a verb must seem. We can "befriend"
a person. Or we can "act like a
friend." But, within our current
English language usage, we cannot "friend" or "friendship" another. (Nonetheless,
we can "garden" around our homes and in our gardens, and "fish"
for fish in the ponds. English nouns are
often used as verbs.)
The principal mode for demonstrating, or
enacting, friendship is conversation. Christmas cards are nice, as are postcards
and birthday
gifts. Even email messages are helpful
for staying connected, especially
if they are addressed to only one person. However, while not without
the personal touch, these media tend to be much less personal than the living
voice transmitting spontaneous words.
Only a few decades ago, connecting by
long-distance phone was costly, nearly
$1.00 per minute in today's money. Air
travel costs, for many, was prohibitive. Instead, good friends often drove by car and
stopped along the way
to stay for a day or two with either close friends or relatives.Because
we humans are tribal, we need to get up close and personal once in a
while to renew our sense of touch and sound and smell of friends. We need
to update our pictures of our friends with some facetime.
Sociologists have written extensively
about the rugged individualism of
Americans and the attendant attitude that we are self-reliant and don't need
others. Over 30 years ago, Robert Bellah
of U.C. Berkeley described these
shifts in the book he edited, the
now-classic "Habits of the Heart: Individualism
and Commitment in American Life" We
Americans have become
more insular and independent from one another.
Is frequency of contact a part of
friendship? I think so, especially if contact
is easy, as with a phone call. I
understand friendships to be living things,
like gardens, that need attention and nourishment lest they die for want of
care. The idea that friendships, once
established, are static and permanent,
is false. All is change. People change. Life changes.
The only way
to stay current with changes that happen is personal contact.
How can busy people manage to do
this? Here are some ideas:
1. Schedule a "friendship
conversation" regularly, if only occasionally. Make
friends at least as important as a routine dental check-up.
2.
Show interest in major events in a friend's life: illness, promotion, significant
family events like births and deaths, and when you hear they'be been told
"Your son
has been in an accident."
"I'm
sorry, but the lump is malignant."
"We're
phasing out your department."
3. Be
reciprocal. Friendship is a two-way street.
Don't wait to be contacted. Be proactive.
Take the initiative.
4.
Small things are big things. A 5-minute
phone call. A surprise lunch invitation. A personal visit.
5. Create an occasional "friends
get-together" evening, perhaps once every few months, that gives you a
chance to catch up with several friends at one time.
When I was a child, my Swedish
grandparents stayed current with the lives of
their country neighbors. Despite having
no phones and slow postal service,
despite gravel roads and only Model-T Fords, they always seemed to know
about their friends and neighbors miles away.
No doubt some chance
encounters at the general store, or the pitching-in to build a new barn to
replace the one that burned down, or a weekly church service provided
the face-time necessary for staying current with friends.
In those days, there was much physical
work to be done, but many fewer
emotionally numbing distractions, such as striving to succeed, endless
hours in a trance before the TV set, and constant appetites of
consumerism that demanded "more, more, more."
Why
Friendships Fall Apart:
1. Not being there for a friend when needed
2. Distance.
Not enough face-time
3. Not celebrating others' successes
4. Poor listening, even when present
5. Breaking a confidence or gossiping
6. Not keeping promises or agreements
Fortunately, we need not succumb to the
current consensus trance that suggests
friendships take care of themselves.
With a little extra mindfulness and some
modest change of habits, we can both nourish our friends and be nourished by them.
