What is a Friend?
Hi People... welcome to the New Journey
So life has brought me to this place where it seems like it is time to hash my thoughts out again through writing. My marriage and relationship with my wife provided me with the outlet and friend who I could talk about pretty much anything with. My wife's and my marriage was a beautiful one full of love and honesty. Actually, my wife was probably the more brutally honest one. I had a way with words to very gently share constructive feedback. But what we did have was the ability for there to be nothing out of bounds. We could talk about anything. I miss that completely.
My wife's death brought people out of the woodwork. Some of them I expected. Some of them I didn't. For instance, I probably heard from every ex-girlfriend since high school (wrong, there are a couple I didn't hear from... better that way). What I did not expect is who emerged as my go to people. The move just over 2 years ago to a new smaller city on the outskirts of the old one changed my wife's and my life forever. The summer of 2017, my wife and I tried out a new church and found a fountain of loving caring people who quickly became part of our lives. We actually didn't return to the previous church again. We weren't angry, but my wife found herself an immediate best friend who you could almost say she had been waiting her whole life for. The year after can only be described as one the hardest but best years of my wife's life because of the friendships she made at our church.
I similarly connected immediately with a bunch of the guys at our new church. My relationships did not go as deep or as strong as my wife's, but guys take a while to warm up. I continued to attend a Men's group at my old church and still do to this day. It's funny how things work. As married couples, usually the wives make the connections and then the guys have survive a couple of play dates as couples before they start to really become friends. Actually, a shared experience is what really grows the bonds between guys.
Anyways, back to the topic. I miss being able to share my mind and my heart with my wife. As a result I'm looking for others. As I have traveled this widower journey I've taken note of the friend landscape and it has changed a lot. If I had made a list of people who would be there for me 2 years ago and then compared it to the people who are actually a part of my life right now, you would think it is 2 different people. It isn't for a lack of reaching out by the old friends either, life just moves forward and changes and makes different kinds of sense. I had a few friends invite me out for a couple of events with old friends, but my heart wasn't there. They aren't my people anymore.
This got me to thinking about the following questions. And has me wondering where people sit in my circle now and what the value of each circle is.
How personal and how honest and how vulnerable can you be with your friends?
What qualifies a person as a friend? An acquaintance? a good friend? a best friend? family? a friend with benefits?
Maybe we will leave that last one out. One of my people mentioned FWB as a message on a dating app that was using and I briefly tried to convince that person that at least they would get a friend out of it. That possibility was a complete scratch.
Before I get into details, I want to share a few things about myself. I have not always found it easy to make friends. I guess you could say I was a little snobby and a little nerdy. Most of my friend making ability was tied to my confidence. A traumatic grade 6 plummeted my confidence and I became super overly sensitive to social situations. I avoided situations where I wasn't comfortable and confident and invested completely where I was comfortable. What that did was limit my potential friend pool and my opportunities for real deep relationships.
Looking back, my mentor and youth pastor was probably the best friend that I had back then. Unfortunately, that is kind of a one-sided relationship and so I lacked the best friends I longed for. I had some good friends in some of the girls from my church, but the guys weren't super interested in deeper conversations and so we just did a lot of hanging out. On our mission trips, I saw glimpses of deeper, more meaningful relationships, but those often didn't flourish.
It wasn't until college that my ability to make some stronger friendships grew. Moving out of my parents's house forced me to be active in the community that I was in whether I had similar values or not. I can look at those 4 1/2 years in the city to the north and see how my ability to relate to people changed and I made my first 3 best friends by the end of that time. I learned something about having real committed relationships and my first experiences of committed love. I also made my fair bit of mistakes and probably hurt a few people along the way.
What I would like to recognize is that it isn't easy to make friends and keep them. It involves a common resolve by both parties to put the effort in. That can be really hard to find.
I feel like there are a few aspects to relationships. Time, longevity, reciprocity, intentionality, vulnerability, investment.
The combinations of these can be wild. There is the type of relationship where you can spend a ton of time with a person and hardly talk about anything. For example, a coworker type relationship where you spend tons of time together, but all you ever do is talk or complain about work and know very little else about that person. The time is there, but it's of little use to you. I would say that is an acquaintance. Another type of acquaintance is like the neighbor you say hi to when you see them and you may or may not know their name. I can't tell you the name of my neighbors honestly. They all kind of stay to themselves and I didn't even know they knew that Melissa had died until the last couple of week when a couple of them said something.
Let's just say that time does not equal friendship.
Now longevity I value. I would classify a bunch of the people who came to Melissa's memorial as friends still. Even if we aren't spending time together and hanging out together anymore, what we had all those years back is still valued and we still share a genuine hope and concern for each other. Other people who I would consider friends are people who i can actually spend some time with and actually do some activities or go to a hockey game or something like that with. Friends are people that have an interest in you and you can dialogue with about life. They are people that you want and like to spend time with. Do they know about your doubts about God? Do they know your deepest fears? Probably not... and if they did, it has probably changed because they are one of those friends who kind have lasted the test of time. Friends stand the test of time, otherwise maybe they weren't friends.
This is where my thoughts are at, so I am rolling with it.
Now the rest of the mentioned aspects seem tied to deeper friendships and relationships. Reciprocity, intentionality, vulnerability, investment.
Reciprocity in a friendship/relationship seem important. There needs to be give and take. It can't always be one person giving and one person taking or one person sharing and one person listening. One sided relationships are unhealthy and give control to one partner in that relationship. It is more like a parent relationship. Sometimes we forced to endure those unequally balanced relationships in our families. I don't permit those anywhere else. I've had them, but I'm kind of done with them. In my opinion, a good friend will give and take. They will share what's going on with them and will also listen to what is going on with you. If there is advice, it is going both ways. It is reciprocal. I'd say that it is necessary to go anywhere beyond a friend. Anyone who is a "good friend" has this.
For me, one of the divider lines between friend and good friend is how intentionally you are about being friends. Do you just show up at all of the same gatherings, or are you trying to intentionally encounter each other? Best friends do that. They make time for each other. They look for and plan to spend time interacting and sharing and growing together. For instance, I often have childcare for Leeland on Wednesday mornings. I will often try to go for breakfast on Wednesday mornings with people who are my good friends or with people who I hope will be my good friends. There is kind of a blur there. This is going to sound weird, but I kind of test drive friends to see if they will be good friends. I try to be intentional a couple of times, try to show a little vulnerability and wait to see if it is reciprocated. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.
Wednesday mornings don't always work, but there are other people who have different times that work. My Fridays have kind of become a game night for me where I am looking to get out of the house. I have one friend who I regularly visit on Friday nights to play games with them and their kids. Nerd alert: Friday I went and played games with a friend and some of his buddies and played some Dungeons and Dragons. For now, that particular friend is a good friend and the others are acquaintances, but I appreciated the intentional time we put in. You will be shocked to hear that I put more intentionality into friendships that I want to see grow than ones I am indifferent about.
Major bonus points to friends who call me and try to hang out. Shout out to you people. If you aren't good friends, you are well on your way to being them. There is major emphasis at my church on living life together. People that are trying to do that with me are ascending the friend ranks, that is for sure. Take note, if you want to show me that you want to be closer friends with me, try to intentionally spend some time with me. Some of my closest friends can attest to the fact that I make contact a lot, but if it is always me, that friendship won't feel intentional and our status may change.
Now that makes it sound like there are lists of people who are sitting in a category. There is no such list. If someone comes to mind, I can probably at least place them somewhere, but I haven't yet.
I think the biggest hindrance to deeper friendships is people's fear of getting hurt. I have definitely been hurt in various friendships and relationships and have carried insecurities around that for a long time. The trouble is that trust is a lot easier to break than to build. Sometimes it can take a long time until I feel comfortable being any kind of vulnerable with another person (if it ever happens). I've played the game and patiently waited for those moments often to find out the other person has zero interest in that. Previously, I have kept those people around just to have them around.
With my best friend and wife recently stripped away, it stripped away my patience with people who I can't trust. I have very little interest in surface relationships (acquaintances) anymore. I only have so much time to live and there are important things to do and know. Mutual vulnerability is the most important part to a deep friendship or relationship. If I tell someone something personal to me, a goal, a fear, an honest thought, I am trusting the other person to respect that thought. Ideally, that person shares something personal that requires some trust in me as well.
Imagine you tell a friend that you are secretly scared of heights. That friend laughs at you and tells you that the fear is irrational and pretty much tells you that this legit fear that you have is stupid. Does that build trust in your friend? Do you want to share something else personal with that person? No... you don't. Another thing that happens is you share something personal and that person just glosses over it and pretends that they didn't hear it. That definitely doesn't inspire trust and thus stalls that friendship from progressing. Acknowledging that you heard what was being said is key.
I think a lot of people have a sixth sense about the value of a relationship. Some people may call it discernment. I just know sometimes that I should get to know someone better. Rarely am I wrong about this.
I have made some good friends with some unlikely people in the last 4 months. The most common thread has been that these people have been through some similar type of loss. Those who have experienced loss understand many of the feelings I am having and seem to appreciate sharing out of their own experiences with me. When that type of vulnerability happens, trust is built and I now have a foundation for a good friendship.
Don't get me wrong. Although I'm a math teacher, I don't have a formula for this. I'm just looking back on things and realizing what has happened. This has come about for me out of experience and doing what I needed to survive. What I love about it is that although my friendship pool has changed, I am experiencing some rich friendship and deep discussion. I am having the chance to be an encouragement to others and be encouraged.
This last factor is touchy. I put this on the list because I believe is what really pushes things over the top. It's the investment that a person makes. If you have 2 people investing in their friendship / relationship, you are headed for a really strong relationship. When I say investing, I mean showing that you believe in them. It can literally mean investing in their company or idea. It could also mean investing time and energy into their well being or their stuff. Betting on them. When people have other people in their corner believing in them, that makes for really strong relationship.
I recently talked to someone about this and they told me it is really important to them not to feel obligated to reciprocate. They dislike receiving... they don't like the silent contract involved.
I get this, but if you end up in a relationship where people are investing in each other because they believe in each other, not because they are looking for returns, you end up with an ultimate relationship. With Melissa, we invested in her education... she almost became a counselor. I also invested in her wellness, her spiritual growth, things that fulfilled her. I know I'm describing a married couple, but when you invest in each other, you know you are loved and valued and that grows that relationship and erases doubt about it.
I'm going to finish this off by thanking people who have been super long lasting friends and who reached out when tragedy struck. It mattered. I want to say thank you to my family who have been there for me more than anyone else in the last 4 months and for constantly providing me with opportunities to connect with other adults. I want to say thank you to the people who have become my closest friends. By the end of this post, you will probably know where you fit with me too.
Are all the factors present in our friendship or in your other ones?
I literally have put no research into this... it is all just tumbling out of my head. I hope it rings true for you and that you consider the types of friendships and relationships you are fostering. If you can't find anyone I'm making new friends right now. Tell me your story. Spend time with me. Maybe you are my next best friend.
I don't know where this blog is going to go from here.. but step one is putting something out there again. Special thanks to the friend who inspired me to get back to this. It felt good.
So life has brought me to this place where it seems like it is time to hash my thoughts out again through writing. My marriage and relationship with my wife provided me with the outlet and friend who I could talk about pretty much anything with. My wife's and my marriage was a beautiful one full of love and honesty. Actually, my wife was probably the more brutally honest one. I had a way with words to very gently share constructive feedback. But what we did have was the ability for there to be nothing out of bounds. We could talk about anything. I miss that completely.
My wife's death brought people out of the woodwork. Some of them I expected. Some of them I didn't. For instance, I probably heard from every ex-girlfriend since high school (wrong, there are a couple I didn't hear from... better that way). What I did not expect is who emerged as my go to people. The move just over 2 years ago to a new smaller city on the outskirts of the old one changed my wife's and my life forever. The summer of 2017, my wife and I tried out a new church and found a fountain of loving caring people who quickly became part of our lives. We actually didn't return to the previous church again. We weren't angry, but my wife found herself an immediate best friend who you could almost say she had been waiting her whole life for. The year after can only be described as one the hardest but best years of my wife's life because of the friendships she made at our church.
I similarly connected immediately with a bunch of the guys at our new church. My relationships did not go as deep or as strong as my wife's, but guys take a while to warm up. I continued to attend a Men's group at my old church and still do to this day. It's funny how things work. As married couples, usually the wives make the connections and then the guys have survive a couple of play dates as couples before they start to really become friends. Actually, a shared experience is what really grows the bonds between guys.
Anyways, back to the topic. I miss being able to share my mind and my heart with my wife. As a result I'm looking for others. As I have traveled this widower journey I've taken note of the friend landscape and it has changed a lot. If I had made a list of people who would be there for me 2 years ago and then compared it to the people who are actually a part of my life right now, you would think it is 2 different people. It isn't for a lack of reaching out by the old friends either, life just moves forward and changes and makes different kinds of sense. I had a few friends invite me out for a couple of events with old friends, but my heart wasn't there. They aren't my people anymore.
This got me to thinking about the following questions. And has me wondering where people sit in my circle now and what the value of each circle is.
How personal and how honest and how vulnerable can you be with your friends?
What qualifies a person as a friend? An acquaintance? a good friend? a best friend? family? a friend with benefits?
Maybe we will leave that last one out. One of my people mentioned FWB as a message on a dating app that was using and I briefly tried to convince that person that at least they would get a friend out of it. That possibility was a complete scratch.
Before I get into details, I want to share a few things about myself. I have not always found it easy to make friends. I guess you could say I was a little snobby and a little nerdy. Most of my friend making ability was tied to my confidence. A traumatic grade 6 plummeted my confidence and I became super overly sensitive to social situations. I avoided situations where I wasn't comfortable and confident and invested completely where I was comfortable. What that did was limit my potential friend pool and my opportunities for real deep relationships.
Looking back, my mentor and youth pastor was probably the best friend that I had back then. Unfortunately, that is kind of a one-sided relationship and so I lacked the best friends I longed for. I had some good friends in some of the girls from my church, but the guys weren't super interested in deeper conversations and so we just did a lot of hanging out. On our mission trips, I saw glimpses of deeper, more meaningful relationships, but those often didn't flourish.
It wasn't until college that my ability to make some stronger friendships grew. Moving out of my parents's house forced me to be active in the community that I was in whether I had similar values or not. I can look at those 4 1/2 years in the city to the north and see how my ability to relate to people changed and I made my first 3 best friends by the end of that time. I learned something about having real committed relationships and my first experiences of committed love. I also made my fair bit of mistakes and probably hurt a few people along the way.
What I would like to recognize is that it isn't easy to make friends and keep them. It involves a common resolve by both parties to put the effort in. That can be really hard to find.
I feel like there are a few aspects to relationships. Time, longevity, reciprocity, intentionality, vulnerability, investment.
The combinations of these can be wild. There is the type of relationship where you can spend a ton of time with a person and hardly talk about anything. For example, a coworker type relationship where you spend tons of time together, but all you ever do is talk or complain about work and know very little else about that person. The time is there, but it's of little use to you. I would say that is an acquaintance. Another type of acquaintance is like the neighbor you say hi to when you see them and you may or may not know their name. I can't tell you the name of my neighbors honestly. They all kind of stay to themselves and I didn't even know they knew that Melissa had died until the last couple of week when a couple of them said something.
Let's just say that time does not equal friendship.
Now longevity I value. I would classify a bunch of the people who came to Melissa's memorial as friends still. Even if we aren't spending time together and hanging out together anymore, what we had all those years back is still valued and we still share a genuine hope and concern for each other. Other people who I would consider friends are people who i can actually spend some time with and actually do some activities or go to a hockey game or something like that with. Friends are people that have an interest in you and you can dialogue with about life. They are people that you want and like to spend time with. Do they know about your doubts about God? Do they know your deepest fears? Probably not... and if they did, it has probably changed because they are one of those friends who kind have lasted the test of time. Friends stand the test of time, otherwise maybe they weren't friends.
This is where my thoughts are at, so I am rolling with it.
Now the rest of the mentioned aspects seem tied to deeper friendships and relationships. Reciprocity, intentionality, vulnerability, investment.
Reciprocity in a friendship/relationship seem important. There needs to be give and take. It can't always be one person giving and one person taking or one person sharing and one person listening. One sided relationships are unhealthy and give control to one partner in that relationship. It is more like a parent relationship. Sometimes we forced to endure those unequally balanced relationships in our families. I don't permit those anywhere else. I've had them, but I'm kind of done with them. In my opinion, a good friend will give and take. They will share what's going on with them and will also listen to what is going on with you. If there is advice, it is going both ways. It is reciprocal. I'd say that it is necessary to go anywhere beyond a friend. Anyone who is a "good friend" has this.
For me, one of the divider lines between friend and good friend is how intentionally you are about being friends. Do you just show up at all of the same gatherings, or are you trying to intentionally encounter each other? Best friends do that. They make time for each other. They look for and plan to spend time interacting and sharing and growing together. For instance, I often have childcare for Leeland on Wednesday mornings. I will often try to go for breakfast on Wednesday mornings with people who are my good friends or with people who I hope will be my good friends. There is kind of a blur there. This is going to sound weird, but I kind of test drive friends to see if they will be good friends. I try to be intentional a couple of times, try to show a little vulnerability and wait to see if it is reciprocated. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.
Wednesday mornings don't always work, but there are other people who have different times that work. My Fridays have kind of become a game night for me where I am looking to get out of the house. I have one friend who I regularly visit on Friday nights to play games with them and their kids. Nerd alert: Friday I went and played games with a friend and some of his buddies and played some Dungeons and Dragons. For now, that particular friend is a good friend and the others are acquaintances, but I appreciated the intentional time we put in. You will be shocked to hear that I put more intentionality into friendships that I want to see grow than ones I am indifferent about.
Major bonus points to friends who call me and try to hang out. Shout out to you people. If you aren't good friends, you are well on your way to being them. There is major emphasis at my church on living life together. People that are trying to do that with me are ascending the friend ranks, that is for sure. Take note, if you want to show me that you want to be closer friends with me, try to intentionally spend some time with me. Some of my closest friends can attest to the fact that I make contact a lot, but if it is always me, that friendship won't feel intentional and our status may change.
Now that makes it sound like there are lists of people who are sitting in a category. There is no such list. If someone comes to mind, I can probably at least place them somewhere, but I haven't yet.
I think the biggest hindrance to deeper friendships is people's fear of getting hurt. I have definitely been hurt in various friendships and relationships and have carried insecurities around that for a long time. The trouble is that trust is a lot easier to break than to build. Sometimes it can take a long time until I feel comfortable being any kind of vulnerable with another person (if it ever happens). I've played the game and patiently waited for those moments often to find out the other person has zero interest in that. Previously, I have kept those people around just to have them around.
With my best friend and wife recently stripped away, it stripped away my patience with people who I can't trust. I have very little interest in surface relationships (acquaintances) anymore. I only have so much time to live and there are important things to do and know. Mutual vulnerability is the most important part to a deep friendship or relationship. If I tell someone something personal to me, a goal, a fear, an honest thought, I am trusting the other person to respect that thought. Ideally, that person shares something personal that requires some trust in me as well.
Imagine you tell a friend that you are secretly scared of heights. That friend laughs at you and tells you that the fear is irrational and pretty much tells you that this legit fear that you have is stupid. Does that build trust in your friend? Do you want to share something else personal with that person? No... you don't. Another thing that happens is you share something personal and that person just glosses over it and pretends that they didn't hear it. That definitely doesn't inspire trust and thus stalls that friendship from progressing. Acknowledging that you heard what was being said is key.
I think a lot of people have a sixth sense about the value of a relationship. Some people may call it discernment. I just know sometimes that I should get to know someone better. Rarely am I wrong about this.
I have made some good friends with some unlikely people in the last 4 months. The most common thread has been that these people have been through some similar type of loss. Those who have experienced loss understand many of the feelings I am having and seem to appreciate sharing out of their own experiences with me. When that type of vulnerability happens, trust is built and I now have a foundation for a good friendship.
Don't get me wrong. Although I'm a math teacher, I don't have a formula for this. I'm just looking back on things and realizing what has happened. This has come about for me out of experience and doing what I needed to survive. What I love about it is that although my friendship pool has changed, I am experiencing some rich friendship and deep discussion. I am having the chance to be an encouragement to others and be encouraged.
This last factor is touchy. I put this on the list because I believe is what really pushes things over the top. It's the investment that a person makes. If you have 2 people investing in their friendship / relationship, you are headed for a really strong relationship. When I say investing, I mean showing that you believe in them. It can literally mean investing in their company or idea. It could also mean investing time and energy into their well being or their stuff. Betting on them. When people have other people in their corner believing in them, that makes for really strong relationship.
I recently talked to someone about this and they told me it is really important to them not to feel obligated to reciprocate. They dislike receiving... they don't like the silent contract involved.
I get this, but if you end up in a relationship where people are investing in each other because they believe in each other, not because they are looking for returns, you end up with an ultimate relationship. With Melissa, we invested in her education... she almost became a counselor. I also invested in her wellness, her spiritual growth, things that fulfilled her. I know I'm describing a married couple, but when you invest in each other, you know you are loved and valued and that grows that relationship and erases doubt about it.
I'm going to finish this off by thanking people who have been super long lasting friends and who reached out when tragedy struck. It mattered. I want to say thank you to my family who have been there for me more than anyone else in the last 4 months and for constantly providing me with opportunities to connect with other adults. I want to say thank you to the people who have become my closest friends. By the end of this post, you will probably know where you fit with me too.
Are all the factors present in our friendship or in your other ones?
I literally have put no research into this... it is all just tumbling out of my head. I hope it rings true for you and that you consider the types of friendships and relationships you are fostering. If you can't find anyone I'm making new friends right now. Tell me your story. Spend time with me. Maybe you are my next best friend.
I don't know where this blog is going to go from here.. but step one is putting something out there again. Special thanks to the friend who inspired me to get back to this. It felt good.
Labels: The New Journey
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