I confess I ended a number of friendships this past year. I decided to simply “let go” of people who don’t call me or who do not seem to have any interest in whether I am alive or dead. I can’t say this task was easy. I have misgivings about when and how I have approached the effort. My solution has been to simply not call or contact others unless they contact me. I have for many years felt like I was the one doing most of the work in several “friendships.” I am not sure whether it is the “parsimony” of old age (i.e., only so much time left on this earth) or simply laziness. Somehow though, I thought: “Well, if they want to see me, they can call me for a change.” Maybe it simply means that I do not care about friendship enough to invest the work they need. I even had misgivings over my “best friend.” I began to feel that we had drifted apart over the years and no longer had the basis for a friendship.
In Friends and Friendship Part 1, I described some basic theories of friendships and went back to the ideas of Aristotle to help describe what friendship is and the types of friendship possible. I outlined my theory on the importance of intimacy to friendship. Here in Part 2, I want to identify ten behaviors that I think are necessary for a true friendship. I am not sure ALL of them are necessary (You may have good friends without all ten being present) but I do think most of them are essential for a friendship. I would like to describe each behavior and why it is important and its role in helping to create a true friendship. I think friendships take time and effort. In this respect, I don’t think friendships are any different than a good marriage. You can’t take your partner for granted and ignore them day after day and expect your marriage to last. I believe the same is true for friends.
As you read my friendship behaviors, please remember that I am not advocating that anyone take their friendships lightly or that you simply jettison friends who do not meet my criteria. I am simply saying that if you want to have good friends there are some behaviors that are necessary to create, maintain and continue a friendship. Given the need to invest time and effort to keep good friendships, the idea of 2,000 or even 200 Facebook “Friends” is ludicrous. If you can maintain even one good friendship in your life, I would consider you lucky.
If the time comes and you decide to take stock of your friendships, please remember one thing: You do not have to “let go” of old friends. You can rejuvenate or refresh your friendships by once again becoming a friend. If your efforts are not reciprocated over time (and not necessarily fifty-fifty) you might want to reevaluate just who you should spend your time and energy with. This might sound “cold and calculating” but if you have found a better solution please send me an email or drop a comment in the box. I would sincerely like to keep as many friends as I can and if there is a way to do it without time and effort; I have not yet found it.
1. Disagree respectfully:
I cannot imagine a friendship where we agree on everything 100 percent of the time. However, I also cannot imagine a friend who would insult me, disrespect me or try to make me look foolish. I would not call that a friend. I expect my friends to listen to my ideas and even if they do not agree, to at least try to understand where I am coming from and not deliberately try to denigrate or diminish my theories or opinions. I have no problem with friends presenting facts or logical arguments against said opinions, but I don’t believe a friendship can be based on disrespect unless it can be done in a caring manner which is sometimes possible but usually very difficult to effect.
2. Overcome anger:
I have often noticed that real friendships seem to start “after” friends get angry with each other. Perhaps, more than the anger signaling the start of true friendship is the process by which you are able to overcome the anger with your friend. If we can’t confront the anger with another, it is unlikely that we will become good friends. I remember once going to a marriage seminar and they said there were three things you needed for a good marriage: 1. A communications process. 2. A fight-fair process. 3. A realistic budget. I was very intrigued by the fight-fair process. What this entails is the ability to communicate with your spouse or friend about things that make you angry or disappoint you. It goes beyond daily communication to encompass “extra-ordinary” situations that arise when something does not go as we expect it to. For many of us, this is a daily event. If you can’t communicate with and overcome your anger with another person, you probably do not have a true friendship.
3. Share common interests:
Perhaps, you met your friends at the gym or work or playing bingo. We meet people all over and I allow that ninety five percent of the people we meet are simply acquaintances. They never become true friends because they never go beyond sharing common interests. Nevertheless, the sharing of common interests helps create a bond that is fundamental to a good friendship. It is indeed possible to stay good friends with someone long after the initial interests have disappeared simply on the basis of the shared history that you now have with that individual. For instance, you might have been on a trip together or been in the service together. These shared memories act as the cement to continue to provide a sense of common interests. At some point however, these former interests become faded and need to be replaced by new and more salient experiences that can be shared together. Without such interests as a foundation, I have seen many former friendships simply fade away.
4. Help each other when in need:
There is perhaps no truer saying that “A friend in need is a friend in deed.” The power of the feelings that are manifested towards someone coming to our aid in time of need is beyond comparison to any other single aspect of friendship. I remember a good friend of mine who once told me during my divorce: “The hell with your ex-wife, I am here for you.” I will never forget how grateful I felt towards him for the fact that he was willing to unequivocally provide me with emotional support when I needed it. Friends may help you in many ways, but perhaps no help goes further than the emotional support that we provide towards friends when they need it.
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey
5. Don’t expect your friends to be perfect:
This is a simple but profound truth: None of us are perfect. If you constantly find fault with others, chances are you will not have many or even any friends. It is not always easy to accept the faults in others. For instance, I disagree with one of my friends over some of the people whom he calls friends. I would not have a racist or a bigot as a friend. I am willing to overlook many warts and blemishes in my friendships but I draw the line at liking or even tolerating people who hurt or pick on others. Perhaps I should be more charitable. I admit, I write off many potential friendships because I will not tolerate hateful attitudes towards others. Nevertheless, I do recognize that the more that you can handle and deal with the imperfections in others, the more friendships you will potentially have.
6. Care about each other:
This might be the single most important bond for a good friendship. Do you really care about what happens to the other person? Are you willing to go out of your way to take an interest in their needs and lives? Caring can take many forms and might be attending a funeral at one of their relatives or driving your friend to the hospital or giving them a ride to the airport. A few years ago, I remember a friend who told me that whenever any of his friends were in need, he simply showed up with helping hand, or a pie or a shoulder to cry on. He said that he did not ask the common question “How can I help you?” He simply went ahead and tried to help without being asked or given permission. His initiative seemed to me more powerful than the common refrain “Let me know if I can be of help.” I would be much more grateful towards the friend that simply showed up rather than waiting to be asked.
“It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.”
― Marlene Dietrich
7. Occasionally reach out to each other:
I believe it is important for friends to have some form of regular contact with each other. I cannot understand or believe that a good friendship can endure without some form of mutual interdependence. Whether, you come by for dinner, attend a movie together, take a trip together or simply call or even email your friends, it seems (to me anyway) that friendships need some form of regular lubrication that mutual contact provides.
I have said that Facebook friends are generally not true friendships. They do however; provide regular contact between “potential” friends and people who you truly call good friends. The simple “like” button provides a very powerful and instant means of letting others know that you appreciate, admire or support something they are engaged in. I have given many likes and received many likes on Facebook and I always feel closer to those individuals who take the time to “like” or note some issue that I care about. Liking is not a very big effort but it forms that sense of mutual contact that I think is the lubricant for a good friendship.
“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
8. Apologize when you hurt the other person:
Good friends do not deliberately hurt each other. However, hurts both physical and emotional will often be inflicted. I cannot tell you how many times I have bumped into Karen, stepped on her toes, or unintentionally inflicted some pain on her while we were together. Fortunately, it was nothing ever very serious. More serious to our relationship, has been the emotional pain and hurts that I have too often inflicted on her. Some of them were intentional, some were not. None were ever deserved though. At such times, I think it is critical and essential to apologize to the other person. Whether or not it was intentional is not the point. The point is that you have hurt the other person and if you truly care about them, you want them to know how you can help alleviate the pain.
A number of years ago, I was on the Oprah Winfrey show. The subject was apologies. The expert that Oprah had on the show said that a true apology has three parts: 1. Saying: “I am sorry.” 2. Listening to the hurt or pain you have caused the other person. 3. Setting things right. Part one, saying you are sorry is often the easy part. However, many of us expect that as soon as we say we are sorry, the other person should forgot about it and get on with their lives. Simply issuing an apology may not help the other person move on. The difficult part is listening to the feelings, emotions and disappointments that your actions have led to. People may all respond differently to different insults and individuals are responsible for their own feelings. However, we all have feelings and in a good relationship you must care about the feelings of others. Whether or not you have caused the feeling is a moot point. Can you listen to and empathize with the pain that is in the other person? This is often the only way; that they will be able to move beyond the pain and truly rejoin a relationship with you.
“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
― Bob Marley
9. Kidding or joking with each other:
Insulting a person or demeaning a person deliberately is a far cry from kidding someone or even “roasting” another person. The first is done with malice and hatred, the latter is done with love and admiration. I have never been really good at humor and my efforts to be funny have often backfired. Good friends are friends that you can joke with. Of course, everyone has their sensitive spots and tolerances and knowing these are important to a friendship. The deeper the friendship, the more likely you will have a greater tolerance towards each other in terms of how much you can push the boundaries of joking and ridicule. Most of us have learned that texting, emails and online communications do not lend themselves to humor and spoofing. That is why an entire arsenal of symbols 🙂 has arisen to show the other person that “no malice” is intended in your comments. In our face to face communications, our body language readily communicates towards our friends our intentions and whether or not they are playful or benign. I cannot conceive of a real friend who I could not joke with or make fun of from time to time and of course vice verse.
10. Trust your friends:
The amount of trust you would put in a friend might be the single most obvious indicator of how strong that friendship was. But what do we mean by the word Trust? We often hear the phrase “trust me” used today. What does it mean to trust though? ASU Online defines trust as follows:
Trust is both an emotional and logical act. Emotionally, it is where you expose your vulnerabilities to people, but believing they will not take advantage of your openness. Logically, it is where you have assessed the probabilities of gain and loss, calculating expected utility based on hard performance data, and concluded that the person in question will behave in a predictable manner. In practice, trust is a bit of both. I trust you because I have experienced your trustworthiness and because I have faith in human nature.
A friend is someone who you can expose your vulnerabilities with. In Part 1 of this blog, I discussed the importance of intimacy to a friendship. When we are intimate with someone, we are more exposed and more vulnerable. There is no escaping vulnerability in a good friendship. If you want a strong friendship, you must be willing to trust the other person and that means you must be willing to be vulnerable. The fewer secrets you have with your friends, the stronger your friendships will be. The issue of trust is paramount here because who but a fool would share secrets with someone they could not trust. The Internet is full of ridiculous instances of people posting, texting or sharing secrets with others who it became glaringly evident they could not trust. Some of us are more trusting than others, but I think that most good friendships grow in trust as our experiences teach us whether or not the other person can really be trusted. Thus, the final hallmark of a good friendship is trust.
Time for Questions:
Are you happy with your friendships? Do you have some good friends? How do you define friendship? How many of the ingredients of friendship that I have outlined do you share with your friends? Which ingredients do you disagree with? Which ingredients do you think I have missed? What do you need to do tomorrow to have better friendships?
Life is just beginning.
Love is a word used in many semantic constructions. People associate love with sex, marriage, partnership, and other types of relationships between human beings. It is also common for the word love to be associated with inanimate objects and other animals. For instance, people say “I love my car” or “I love my dog.” These uses of the word trivialize the meaning of love. Romantic novels (think Romeo and Juliet) portray love as undying or “dying” passion but seldom show the hard work required to keep love burning. TV and movies feature continuous images of love based more on lust rather than what real love is. Even Jesus the greatest prophet of love did not get the idea of love right.
Jesus gave one example of “true love” but missed the most significant example in his life. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13. Many soldiers have given up their lives to save others in the course of war. Often these soldiers were friends with the men they died for. However, to say that they loved them is quite off the mark. A number of years ago, I dove into a river to save a guy who was being dragged down the St. Croix River by its current. He did not know how to get out of the current and was fighting it instead of going with it. I swam out and brought him to shore. He was very grateful. I risked my life for this man. I did not know this man and I certainly did not love him. Many acts of heroism have been done by people out of a sense of responsibility or compassion, but I would not call these “acts of love.”
I propose that the greatest acts of love are to stand by someone when the world is bent on destroying them and you risk being destroyed along with them. The love of a mother for a son convicted of a heinous crime is one of these acts. Jesus’s mother Mary stood by the cross and watched her son die, never deserting his side. I am sure she suffered insults and criticisms and was blamed for his behavior. A mother who will feel love for her son or daughter no matter how grievous the crimes they have done is committing an act of love.
A few months ago, the news carried a story about a young man who had been in and out of trouble. He went into a dinner with a gun, robbed several patrons and was shot in the back as he was leaving. No charges were brought on the shooter. As it turned out the gun that he used in the robbery was a water pistol. The mother was questioned as to her thoughts. She did not attack her son’s killer, nor did she defend her son’s behavior. She did wonder if he really needed to be shot in the back as he was leaving. I was struck by the mother’s sadness and love for her son. It did not matter that he was a bad kid or that the whole of the media was gleeful about his being shot in the act; his mom’s (like Mary’s) love remained firm.
One of the most common tropes in movies and shows concern what I call the “Two Ships Passing in the Night Love Model.” Individuals who seem to resonate with each other go about their daily business and never tell the other person how they feel. This has been a part of so many shows that I have watched that I am losing count. You sit there and wonder episode after episode if they will ever say anything before it is too late. It is frustrating as you want them to get together and say, “I love you.”
I thought about this problem for a while. Many would say it was just a writer’s trick to get you to keep coming back for the next episode. You get hooked on whether or not they will ever consummate their love either physically or emotionally. It is a rather good hook but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was really art mimicking life. I have been guilty of the same behavior and many people I know have also been guilty of the same behavior. We fail to say I love you when it counts the most. We can say that we love our new shoes or that we love our cat easily enough, but we have a hard time telling friends and relatives that we love them. We often abbreviate the sentiment with “Love you” or we use the term generically. “See you later folks, love all of you.” The simple act of looking someone in the eyes and saying “I love you” is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks that many of us face.
But what is true love anyway? Is loving a person in the same ballpark as loving your dog or your new shoes? Would you give up your life for your cat or your shoes? There are many elements that are part of true Love. A life without true love is rather sad but more common than many people realize. How many people do you know who took marriage vows only to divorce within ten years or less? How many of these people were willing to go to a marriage counselor before they divorced? How many of them just gave up on the other person before giving them a chance to change or giving themselves a chance to change? My elements of true love include:
I think of the places I have been. Their memories come randomly. Sometimes I remember being 16 at the New York Worlds Fair in 1964. Roaming around by myself with no particular agenda. The Vatican Pieta exhibit really made an impression on me. Then it was my year in Biloxi, Mississippi. Scuba diving off Ship Island whenever I could get a break from my Air Force duties. Unalakleet, Alaska where I spent a year on a remote mountain top off the Bering Sea. Dating Eskimos and Indians who were the first women I ever really cared about. After leaving Alaska for Wisconsin, I developed a whole new family to start life with as a responsible father and husband.
There are many lists of “places” to see but much fewer lists of great events to see. Events are harder to find. Some occur every year like the Newport Jazz Festival and others are one off events like the Woodstock Music Festival. We frequently do not find out about events until they are over. In our travels, Karen and I have discovered posters of local events. Generally, they are not within our travel dates, or they have already occurred. Sometimes though we have been lucky enough to “trip” over an event and attend it. On occasion, it has been through the advice of local people who have told us about the event.
In one of my blogs, I noted the distinction between being a tourist and being a pilgrim. One definition of a tourist is “A person visiting a place for pleasure.” My definition of a pilgrim is non-religious. You do not have to be on a sacred mission to be a pilgrim. I propose the idea of a pilgrim as someone who takes part in the cultures they are visiting. Someone who is not looking in from the outside like at a visitor to a Hawaiian Luau but someone who joins the celebrants. They say there are three types of people. Those who do not know that there is a parade. Those who watch the parade. Those who are in the parade. Tourists are watchers. Pilgrims are in the parade. In many of our travels, Karen and I have managed to “be in the parade” at least for a short while.
We have so many memories of friends met during travels. Friends such as Alex and Heidi in Cervelló, Spain enriched our lives and made our trip to Spain more than memorable. Xibo and Mary were friends we met on our Chinese trip in 1989. They accompanied us on several adventures in China. Years later, we helped them to emigrate to the USA. They now live in San Francisco with their daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. In Seoul, we attended a birthday party for our grandson Sam after our adopted Korean daughter Susan found her birth mother. A year after Sam was born, we traveled back with Susan to Korea for the celebration of his one-year birthday with Susan and her birth family.
A “Last Man Standing Bottle” includes some of the most interesting people I ever met in Frederic, Wisconsin. We would gather every weekday in the town library to discuss books, politics, guns, cars, ideology, and any other ideas brought up. We agreed 10 years ago to create this iconic “Bottle” for our coffee group. Since putting the Old Granddad Bourbon in a beautiful case with a pendant that had our names on it, four of our members have passed away. The group disbanded with the advent of Covid and was never resurrected. The bottle now sits in a case at the Frederic Train Museum along with many other relics from Frederic. I am 76 years old and the youngest of the three remaining bottle members. The shadows of Dick, Jerry, Brian, and Ken periodically go through my mind. I remember each of them so vividly in respect to ideas, but their physical aspects are just lingering shadows who periodically are guests of my thoughts.
When we are born, we are compared to growth charts and Gesell Developmental schedules. for our development. Lag behind and your parents will be worried. As we grow up, we get compared to sisters, brothers, cousins, and others. Who has not heard the comment “You are just like your father,” or “your sister had straight A’s when she was your age.” In school, we will be tested from kindergarten through college on a variety of measures designed to see how we stack up. Each state will routinely rate the children in a school district or region to compare to other children in the country. Children and schools are then ranked and rated from best to worst. Everyone with any eyes and a brain knows that the school districts with the most money will almost always have the highest rated schools.
About fifteen years ago, I wanted to test out a hypothesis. Forbes Magazine each year publishes its list of 200 richest people in the world. It gives a great deal of information about each person such as schooling and net worth. I wanted to test whether or not a college degree made a difference in net worth. I added up the overall net worth of all college graduates and compared it to the overall net worth of all those who did not complete college. About fifty five percent of the Forbes richest people had either a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree. The remaining forty five percent either did not enter college or did not finish college. Who do you think earned more money? Imagine my surprise to find that the average net worth of non-college degreed rich people was 3.5 billion dollars compared to 2.5 billion dollars for degreed people. All the hype on college degrees may just help make colleges richer.
In the next few weeks, I want to add four other searches to Dr. Frankl’s search. I believe that these are equally important to most of us. In fact, I might argue that to the average person, some of these other searches will dictate most of their lives. A particular search might take precedence over all others and drive how the person behaves, what goals they have and how they organize the daily activities of their lives.
When you adopt the Packers, you become a member of the Green Bay Packer Fan Club. Being accepted gives you a new identity. You are a Packer Backer, a Cheese Head. Being accepted means you now represent something great. You are part of one of the best football teams of all time. You can put your Packer shirt on proudly and everywhere you go in Wisconsin, you will be admired. You are no longer just Jane Doe.
The first question anyone must answer is what do they expect to get out of the group? What kind of acceptance are you looking for? To borrow from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I think we must ask what need we are trying to fulfil by joining this group. Are we hoping to get an acceptance that will meet our needs for basic survival, our need for security, our need for love and friendship, our need for self-esteem or our need for self-development. Many groups yield benefits in all these areas once a person is accepted into the group. However, I think it is very important to be clear from the start what you expect to get by joining any group. This first question is a prelude to the second question.
What will gaining acceptance into this group cost me? The line from Matthew, 16:26 reminds us that, “What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul?” Every human endeavor or activity comes with some cost. In business terms, we use a Cost Benefit Analysis to determine if the benefits will justify the costs. In terms of acceptance there may be costs beyond money to joining any group or club. You may find social and emotional costs attached to a membership. Will the benefits of acceptance by this group justify these costs? Do you have to sell your soul to the devil to get the benefits? The Mafia makes members take an oath never to “rat” on anyone regardless of what they have done. Many organizations have rules and codes which put the good of the group ahead of the good of society. Partisanship in politics is another example of where loyalty to a party soon negates the very reason that many people went into politics. Good intentions often go down the drain when a person is faced with losing acceptance in their identity group.
Despite attending forty 3-day Jesuit retreats and regularly going to church with my spouse, I remain adamantly somewhere between an Atheist and an Agnostic. See my blog 
I can see some positive sides to a church ideology that addressee inner spirituality, but I think it has serious drawbacks. You can focus too much on what I will call the “inner spirituality” of church members. The reasoning behind the emphasis on inner spirituality can be faulty. The theory is that if each member becomes a better Christian, they will be better neighbors towards others. If they feed the hungry and cloth the poor, they will be ridding the world of the evils that Jesus preached against. Unfortunately, these propositions are not evidenced by historical fact. For hundreds of years many Christians supported slavery and sexism by doing little or nothing to condemn or speak out against it. Furthermore, many Christians were major protagonists of racism and sexism. If their ministers spoke out against it, it obviously made little difference. Being a card carrying member of a Christian church never seems to correlate with ending war, sexism, racism, homophobia or even poverty. I think without an equal emphasis on “Outer Spirituality” Christianity is a worthless religion.
There are many definitions of spirituality. What does it mean to be a spiritual person? Some people lean towards accepting a higher being or creator. Some lean towards accepting a more conventional religious perspective. Many on-line definitions list several factors necessary to be a spiritual person. My own definition is much simpler. I think being a spiritual person involves two elements. The first is seeking meaning in one’s life. The second is seeking purpose. Meaning is inner spirituality. Purpose is outer spirituality. Meaning and purpose must go beyond what is simply good for oneself and must embrace what is good for humanity and the universe. Thus, a truly spiritual person is one who finds and balances inner and outer spirituality.
Aging Capriciously 