On Friendship
Tonight we are having dinner with several of Kim’s closest friends, or, to be precise, one of her closest friends and her beau. Usually we would be having dinner with those two and their other mutually good friend with whom they share a long theatrical history (I think it was on the National Road Tour of State Fair). Unfortunately, that person is not invited and is somewhat at odds with the one with the beau. We are talking long-time pals, so what could have caused this? Truth lies in the eyes of the begrudger. She feel he was harsh and judgmental. He feels she was random and ill-willed (socially, politically?)
The point is that they are not speaking to one another and my wife is in the middle of it and trying to remain friends with both, which is a normal and admirable reaction to a situation like this. My wife does not like harsh and judgmental, but she also does not like random and ill-willed (socially or politically). I am the casual observer and while I think it is always a shame when these relationships hit the wall, I also feel like it simply happens over time for one reason or another.
My best friend in college and most of my adult life (at least 30 years) is not so much my friend any more. We had a falling out, which some might think was over money, but it was much more over loyalty and respect for our history. It was a sad thing to have happen, but when the going gets tough, sometimes friendships get going and depart. I have often said that people say you can pick your friends, but not your family. I disagree and would add you can’t pick your family or your long-time friends. Your friends are your friends at some point. I have several friends who I think are royal pains-in-the-ass, but I just don’t believe I can throw them aside and say that they are no longer my friends. I’m going out on a limb here but there is the smallest chance that some people I count as friends might even think I am a pain-in-the-ass and wish they could distance themselves from me.
There are friends I have worked with that I would never work with again. There are friends that I have been in business with that I would never go into business with again. But these are my friends one way or the other and I have to be careful to be tolerant of them in whatever way needed. I’m not talking about tolerance of criminal or truly anti-social behavior, but tolerant of diverging views. People take their own paths in life and their views and feeling morph in different way sometimes by virtue of their circumstances and sometimes by virtue of their genetic morphology. Aging is a strange process. People who were once generous to a fault can turn dour and stingy in old age. People who were pleasant and happy all the time can turn sad and grumpy. Movies like Grumpy Old Men do not come out of nowhere.
I have been thinking a lot about my friends lately for some reason. If I use my Christmas card list as my starting point or universe, I think it’s fair to say I can break down my friendships as College Friends (those I attended with), Cornell Friends (those I communed with or worked with), Work Bygone Friends (I used to work with them, but not now), Current Work Friends, Old Neighborhood Friends (from where I used to live, but don’t live now), Organizational Friends (people I served on boards with), Service Friends (people who have served needs for me over the years and thereby become friends), Family of Friends’ Friends (it happens), Miscellaneous Old Friends (High School, From places I lived, etc.) and Family members that are more friends than family. It’s a lot of categories and even more subcategories if I bothered to parse them further by degree of closeness.
The big issue we must all decide is are these particular people really friends or are they acquaintances? It’s a hard line to draw, but I like to use the test of whether you would call them to discuss a problem you are having and need their advice about. I’m talking less about hemorrhoids, and more about a problem with another friend or a big decision you need to make. This blog actually helps me a little in the delineation of some friendships and probably solidifies some of them as well.
I have one friend in particular who is older than me, is a writer and an academic who went to the same school, but whom I met years later by virtue of living next door to him (by now he knows I’m writing about him). He has proofread all of my written work for several years now and always has a comment for me and encouragement for me that keeps me writing. I send these blog posts specifically to him for comment and he and my wife are the only ones who I am certain are reading every post. Others I can tell are reading my posts from their emailed comments or their online comments. I am distinctly not saying that to be my friend you have to read my writing, but I would say that anyone who does has a better chance of understanding me if that matters at all.
I have one old friend that falls into the category of a friend I worked with for years and then went into business with. I also served on an organizational board with him for many years. We have been friends for thirty-five years. We have travelled together to both normal and exotic places. We have even shared an office for a period of time when we started our business. He was recently asking me to sign up for an incremental investment in a company he is trying hard to incubate. I had recently emailed him several of my stories that related directly to him and some of our mutual friends. His comment to me was that he would read my stories if I made the investment. That may sound pretty crass, but it is actually what I love about the guy. He is one of the funniest and most irreverent guys I know and while I know he said that for its humor content, I also suspect that reading my stories was not at the top of his to-do list so there was an element of truth in it,
That goes to the heart of the friendship issue. You can have friends who agree with your politics and your thoughts on the world and those who disagree. The true mark of a friend is someone who will tell you what he really thinks and take the time to really listen to what you are saying. You can ask no more of a friend than that.
Dear Lone Ranger,
Being only an acquaintance through our son marrying your beautiful daughter gives me a lot of latitude. And you might have noticed that I will take that license and stretch it into a mile. Basically I have no shame. A quality that can make many otherwise uncomfortable situations of little importance. A laissez-faire social attitude I guess you could call it.
I know I have been a follower of your posts for a short time but read them I do. On the subject of friendship there are countless combinations or levels they can fit into. Sigmund Freud here to ask you what made you choose to call your blog ‘The Lone Ranger’? Could it be due to your nomadic upbringing? Your nomadic work style? Yes, many years at one place but in different capacities and with countless fellow workers and associates for different lengths of time. Also a great deal of actually traveling for work and probably running the gamut of meeting dull to exceedingly interesting people. Let’s remember the various businesses that you have helped start, owned or just helped out. How, in those conditions, are any quantifiable parameters to be applied? One size doesn’t fit all.
I am the polar opposite of you. Not to say that Freud couldn’t have a field day inside my head too. I was born and raised in one town until I left for college. It was and is a beautiful town where I never once felt worried about my safety. I met the first of my two best friends when I cut through the woods behind my home over to a new block. This is suburbia remember, this block was five houses long with yards. But I was only three and such distances appeared correspondingly longer. However I actually could see the back of his house from my backyard. Two boys were in front of their home with the older brother trying to make two bicycles into one three wheeled bike. Despite the failure of this endeavor, he was and is very smart. The other boy was watching his brother cannibalize his bike when I walked up to him, told him my name and bluntly asked if he wanted to be friends. Bob, not knowing better, said yes and after more than sixty years he is still my best friend. Our triumvirate was completed at the beginning of seventh grade when a new boy and his mother moved in across the street from Bob. Again I took the initiative and got Bob to come with me and introduce ourselves to him. His name was/is Jim and has been my other best friend ever since. He is also my attorney but it is because he is an exceptional one and not due to our friendship. At that stage of my life I was pretty pushy wasn’t I.
I read an article about our brains and memories. Roughly put it explained that every day we are forming countless new memories of a myriad of importance and the brain files them away accordingly. Now our brains have certain amounts of RAM and newer things constantly push older ones further back. You are not necessarily ‘losing it’ when you have a little trouble retrieving older thoughts. In business it would be the equivalent of FILO. First in, last out.
My wife developed the Christmas card variation on this with friends and others we have known well enough to exchange cards with. She keeps a file box a notes each year who we sent a card to and who sent one back. After a couple of years of not receiving one back we stop sending one to them. It’s not personal, just business. And sensible use of time. Our priorities change, people move, the kids are having their own kids and yada, yada, yada. I’m not mad at them, life marches on.
But real good friends are another animal. You can go for over a month not having spoken, yet when you do call it seems like only yesterday. Even as I have said at other times, just knowing that they are out there is somehow heartening. And as you wrote Ranger, the friends who will tell you what’s what regardless of how diametrically opposed they may be are the ones you can actually love. Give-take, up-down, back and forth a truly great friendship can be tested and even stretched but never broken. Of course I like that type the most.
Sincerely, Another Country Heard From
Mostly agree except with the “who sent a card back” thing. Decided long ago it shouldn’t matter. What matters is how I feel. As for the Old Lone Ranger, it’s all about my unmasking via the written word….