Friendships

So what makes a proper friendship? Is it one single component? Or maybe a plethora of traits that keeps it all glued together?

My Reunions blog visited a little bit of the detail in here in that there are periods of your life when you are thrown together, and almost forced to work at friendships you maybe hadn’t originally desired to. School and working life best cover these times, and many would note that key observation spoken by Martin Freeman’s character at the culmination of the TV mockumentary The Office:

“The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with. I mean, you don't know them, it wasn't your choice. And yet you spend more time with them than you do your friends or your family. But probably all you have in common is the fact that you walk around on the same bit of carpet for eight hours a day.”

Tim's Speech

It certainly rings true.

I also recall some advice I was offered, immediately before I started my first job working part time at Sainsburys in Feb 1991:

“Don’t ever trust work mates – at most they are often just colleagues, and rarely will they be your friends”

It’s quite a bleak view, but having been in part or full time employment now for nearly 24 years, I can indeed think of examples that compound that thought process. Conversely I have also made some great friends along the way too, so it’s not all bad!

So are work and school friends of a temporary status only, compared to the friends who you specifically choose to socialise with? Quite probably, though it’s absolutely possible to have acquaintances who sit in all three circles.

Experience tells us that some traits are more important than others in assessing friendships, but having done some research into the apparent key traits below, I wonder if it would take an angel to truly completely fit the criteria:

Be Gossip Free

Everybody talks about each other. Fact. If your friend is talking to you about a mutual friend, chances are they’re also talking about you behind your back! To be gossip free is extremely hard, but I guess consideration should be given to whether it’s for welfare reasons. Sometimes the greatest help from friends starts from them having talked about something that concerns or worries them about you.

Trustworthy

Absolutely ties in with the above. What happened in Naboo, stays in Naboo.

Trust and Loyalty can never be underestimated in life – without them, so many of the people you spend your time with are nothing more than acquaintances. Counting and depending on people at times of need, and knowing they will come through for you, provides an incredibly powerful support network.

Never Jealous

Willpower has to be immensely strong if you are to be totally supportive of a friend when they are achieving or fulfilling something that you desire too. I wonder if it’s even possible to not be even the slightest bit envious. Friendships should never stop anyone being truthful though. Strong friendships often come from a place of brutal honesty. The best Friends are there for you because they want to be, not because they have to be.

Be Honest
Carrying on the honesty theme. Is there any truer truth than being honest? Not everyone handles it well, but the whole point is that this person is the one you’ve chosen to be your main confidant in so many things. What have you got to hide that they don’t already know anyway?

Make Time

You can verbally insist you have a great friendship, but it’s amazing how you don’t actually spend that much time together! Texting and messaging doesn’t count either...

Making time for friends – particularly outside a family life – is an increasingly hard act to pull off, but you don’t necessarily need to be in your friends’ pockets to still be true to them. Meeting up with friends after a long absence and hitting the same old groove from the get-go is absolutely a sign of a strong bond. Just don’t stay away too long next time!

Never Flaky

Pfft! This is an annoying one. There will always be episodes when you genuinely think ‘why do I even bother?’ – but one-offs ought not to dictate your thought process alone. It’s when fair and honest communication breaks down more than just once or twice that you should rethink the relationship. No-one likes being mugged off, and certainly your friends should never be putting you in that position regularly.

Never Judgmental

We all do things in shame – but how does a true friend react to it? Abandon you? Laugh at you? They might even take you to task over it, but the key is that hopefully they won’t think any less of you. It’s all about tolerance and understanding. If at the crux you are a good person, your friend will forgive you most of the things you wish you hadn’t done! And if you’re really lucky, show you some compassion too.

Be Respectful

You don’t have to always agree with your über freund, but being respectful to their opinion is a must. And seeking it should be something you are confident in doing. It’s too easy to say that they will simply ‘want for you, what you want for yourself’, as a solid friendship should be encouraging and influential, rather than paying lip service or being domineering.

Have Humour

If you can’t laugh shamelessly with, at yourself or in spite of your best friend, when can you? Notwithstanding tragedy, surely Laughter is right up there with Love as a truly great gift humankind is blessed with?

Just Listen
I love that lyric in the song ‘Drive’ by The Cars:

“Who’s gonna pay attention to your dreams?”

The song seems to be about a broken down relationship, but the friendship theme runs through it a great deal.

Some describe a ‘best friend’ as someone who will literally just listen to them – incessantly if required. Hearing is one thing, but truly listening to a friend can be so worthwhile to them. Perhaps lesser friends only pretend to listen, but it doesn’t mean they are wholly disinterested. It just means they are otherwise engaged on something else in their mind that isn’t you! Don’t hold it against those friends, but just know when to recognise the friend who clearly is taking all your words onboard.

Whilst this is possibly the most important trait to some, it’s probably one of the hardest to realise, the desire to soak up everything from your friend in their time of need.

The skill to just let your friend rant, rave and indeed cry whilst you say nothing is borderline genius. Is silence a fear of saying the wrong thing? Sometimes. But a true friend’s silence can actually speak volumes in them affording you profound respect for the depth of vulnerability that you may be in.

I think that what all this really tells me is that there is no such thing as the perfect friend – every single one of us has flaws. Accidentally (and maybe accidentally on purpose on occasions) I have certainly been a failed friend at times.

Importantly though, all this shouldn’t be too upsetting, and on reflection, I believe that there should be immense joy in the value of finding friends who fulfil large chunks of the traits deemed desirable.

Do we actually need ALL our friends to be this revered though?

When recently having a discussion about the amount of Facebook friends that people acquire, I was asked:
“How many true friends have you got?” versus the amount of social networking ones…

“Enough!” I replied – and I believe that more than anything.

It’s not the massive quantity of friends that’s actually important, it’s the overriding quality of the friends you have, even if it’s only the few, or the one.