The evolution of friendship
Think about the people with whom you are friends. If you just met them today, would you become friends?
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about friendships; how they happen and how they evolve, over time. Most of the people I’m closest to, I met my freshman year of college. Because that’s such a watershed year (away from home, full of freedom and confidence) it was easy to form strong bonds. It just so happens that I was fortunate enough to meet several really great people (my husband among them) in that terribly important, life-altering year.
I’m looking at this year as a second freshman year. We’ve moved 800 miles away from family and friends, from the home we’ve known together for 17 years. We’re meeting new people all the time. I think of our street as the dorm we once knew, and am lucky enough to have neighbors who like to chat, share a drink and a good time (just like college, except this time, we don’t have to have the old guy down the hall/street buy our booze).
Just like when I was 17 years old, I have to speak up, tell new people my name and learn something about them. I have to remember names and create relationships, something I’ve done in smaller doses over the years, making teaspoonfuls of friends along the way. Now, feeling displaced and lonely, I need them in gallons and pounds.
Analyzing my friends, now spread all over the country, I ask, would I choose them? Would they choose me?
Barry is my clearest example of an unlikely friend. Whereas he’s a single guy, a computer programmer and musical genius, and I am a married mother of two, a public relations professional with a kid in marching band, one would think, what the heck do these two have in common? A whole lot, believe it or not. Barry’s one of the freshman bunch and, frankly, we weren’t really friends to begin with. We grew to know one another over 18 years of here and there. We have almost identical taste buds (we like a little Coca-Cola with our Jack, thanks), enjoy literature (co-hosted a short lived book club) and have dark, twisted senses of humor (don’t even ask). We can talk for days. Part of that is our shared history, no doubt and many common links. Would Barry and I, meeting for the first time now, today, become friends? I like to think we would.
By contrast, Liz, my best friend in fifth grade, the maid of honor in my wedding, and I have drifted apart. When I had my first child at 19, she was pursuing her engineering bachelors, then her masters. When she was developing her career, I was struggling to help feed my family. While she traveled the world and chronicled her vacations with a photo spread in each year’s holiday card, I wistfully tucked the cards away and pondered sending her a photo of myself, baby on hip, outside the local WalMart, my most exotic destination at the time.
Last year, she gave birth to twins, her first children. While we became mothers 16 years apart, we still have so much in common; we are still the same people. Why aren’t we still close? I’ve gotten back in touch and hope to recapture some of the time we’ve lost.
It’s hard to say who will become your next friend, or, what friend you have now who you think will always be there, won’t.
While I miss my friends, scattered near and far (at last review, I am counting California, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Colorado, Arizona and Virginia as places where my friends now live) I am eager to discover what friends this freshman year will bring.
Will it be you?