I read a post back during Blaugust on JCProbably’s site on the topic of friendship. It was a touching bit of thinking on the topic of habits we persist in to perhaps keep a friendship alive. It struck me with particular force as I am terrible at all the things that one is supposed to do to maintain friendship.
I have a couple of friends, but really only one for whom I’ve developed the habits of friendship. I message my friend Chris once a month or so, and arrange a voice chat somewhat more sporadically than that. Once every year or two we meet up somewhere and spend a day or two in each other’s glorious company.
I don’t know if that is enough to maintain the friendship we’ve had for over 40 years now. What are the magical incantations that make it clear that the other person matters even when contact becomes rare? I do no know the answer to that question, but I know that it matters to me a great deal that I do the right things. Friends are a rare thing with me, so maintaining friendship is important to me.
Friendship is one of those things that many people, certainly people like myself, take for granted until we are totally alone. I generally live my life in a state of ignorance, assuming that my friends already know they are my friends and don’t need any other indicators to that effect. Yet friendship requires tending just like any other living thing.
I am good at being by myself and living in isolation. My daily habits don’t include reaching out to people, and it is easy for me to forget the basics of being social. I find things every day to distract myself, to keep my attention and fight off the demons that haunt me: but those distractions disrupt even the most basic of habits. A week without contact becomes a month, which then becomes a year, and suddenly it is too long to just reach out and say “Hi” to someone. It is the exact opposite of a conscious choice: it just happens and then it is too late.
I don’t think there is any specific answer to what it takes to keep a friendship healthy and active. Maybe the magical incantations aren’t so magical after all. It really depends on the participants in the friendship: where they are in their lives, what their emotional needs are, how they feel in the moment. I do know that it takes more than nothing, and probably more than the amount of effort I put into it.
To my friends, and particularly to my friend Chris- you have my sincere apology. Perhaps that is all any of us can reasonably ask of ourselves: not to be perfect friends, or to maintain constant contact, but to make a genuine effort to show the people who matter that they still do.
The header image for this post was generated using ChatGPT AI: I gave it the whole post as input this time, so the image is busy…
