It was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever said, and I wish I could remember more about the context of thinking it and saying it: I don’t really need people.
I can even recall the room I was standing in – in our den in South Carolina – so it must have been significant. You can only say something that careless and arrogant when you are in a season of plenty. I had a lot of friends in this season – close ones, good ones and casual ones – and the demands of friendship, marriage, family and life must’ve been pushing me to some kind of ragged edge to say such a thing.
Regardless, a lot of time has passed since I felt that way, and if I’ve learned anything since then, it’s this:
I DO need people, and very much so.
I’ve started over three times in the years between then and now, moving to new places where I didn’t know a soul. Pursuing friendship has demanded effort, initiative and intention, and given my children’s ages, it hasn’t happened as easily and naturally as it once did. Moving to a place at 40 and then again at 50, well, people aren’t always open to new friends. Which reminds me of this SPOT ON bit from Jerry Seinfeld–
Unless you’ve started over as a 40-, 50-, 60- (even 30?)- something, you can’t imagine how challenging it can be. When I was settled, before life and circumstances uprooted us from The Comfort Zone, I sometimes took my friends for granted. And something I’ve seen in recent years is that I haven’t always done a great job at maintaining the relationships of friends who are important to me–I assume they know and that’s good enough.
It isn’t always good enough…. ( ~ crooked, fragile, begging-for-forgiveness smile ~ )
All of this is to tell you about something I’m extremely excited about:
I’m working with a team potentially to develop resources that can help support, feed, initiate, inspire, nurture and encourage you to maintain friendships!
Friendship rarely comes together by accident; it has to happen because you pursue someone or she pursues you, typically after you’ve found common ground–that moment C.S. Lewis speaks of in his wonderful, little-but-heady book, The Four Loves: “Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . . .” What would help you become more purpose-filled in your relationships?
I fully realize a thing doesn’t make a friendship happen; but a thing can—
- communicate thoughtfulness and intention
- express affection and interest in another
- become a connecting bridge
- serve as a tangible reminder that we are loved
- act as a conduit for getting together
- encourage, affirm and demonstrate that we are known
I’d love to hear your ideas as they relate to initiating, cultivating, maintaining and deepening friendship.
I’d also like to know about your needs and wishes as they relate to friendship, hear about difficult situations (broken fellowship), how you’ve restored or reconciled a relationship, the tools and resources you already know about that encourage and turn you toward friendship.
Books, articles, blog posts and/or any other resources, apps or products that come to mind. There are no wrong answers.
Your simple response might be the spark that creates something wonderful.
Whether you’re a frequent commenter to blogs or you’ve never commented before; whether we’re friends from the second grade or you’re hitting my blog from a friend of a friend’s share; regardless of your age or stage of life–
I hope to hear from YOU!
I’ll keep you posted as I’m able to share more; for now we’re in the brainstorming / crowdsourcing / ideation (ohYESthatsaword!) phase.
Thank you in advance for sharing this post and your feedback; I’d love to hear a broad spectrum of thoughts and ideas. And if you’re a little gun-shy about commenting publicly to a blog, shoot me an email at robin dance(dot)me(at)gmail.
–Is one really silver and another gold?
–How to re-start one that has languished
–How to renew one that’s from way in the past
–How to help my kids nurture their own
–How to cultivate couple-to-couple friendships
–Can “virtual” friendships be “real”? (I know what I THINK about this; what do you think?)
Those are just a few of the questions I ponder quite often. Looking forward to hearing your take!
Richella!!
Your questions are inspiring in and of themselves! In all of them, I can find myself and circumstances.
To answer your last one, yes…I believe virtual friendships can evolve into real life. There are people I’ve come to love who I would have never known apart from my online life. But there are a few dangers that I’ve observed… 1) Virtual friendships are easier; I can show you the best parts of me, you can show me the best parts of you, and the hard ones are almost undetectable. EVEN when you show your “imperfections”, the mistakes you’ve made (and I’m talking even those dark, dark sins some writers are able to share online), they’re framed by how we want them to be seen. We might confess our junk and show the messy, gritty, poor decisions of life, but we’re always framing them (whether or not we consciously mean to). So, I might see your “bad” side, but there’s a huge difference in LIVING side by side and experiencing the dailiness of life.
2) Online friendships CAN preclude real life friendship; my laptop is the path of least resistance. Years ago, I was a daily blogger; when I’d see those 30-day challenges to write, I’m like, “What’s the big deal? I write every day anyway!” I not only responded to every comment (and back then, there were a lot!), I would visit your blog, thoughtfully read and reply to at least one of your posts. I was a slave to posting and interacting. And one day I realized I knew more about my online friends than I did with my real life ones! This was pre-conferences and all these retreats when bloggers get together, when we still weren’t posting pics of ourselves or kids and we were a little concerned bloggers weren’t who they said they were (turns out, they weren’t all axe murders or scary men living in basements). As I backed off my virtual community, it was about the time social media started ramping up. I eventually “lost” most of those readers from the early days because I was no longer a very good reciprocal commenter.
Today I’m passionate about real life friendship, originating in real life.
Interestingly, I DO find conversations, thoughts and ideas ONLINE that do NOT exist in my sphere of friends and acquaintances; I understand why it’s refreshing to find smart people who are discussing “big” issues with great thought and intelligence. It’s a lure to me and I have to fight the urge to jump back in to the Matrix…. I do NOT want to live here again.
So…tell me what you think :). It’s a valid question for our culture. And oh, boy…our kids. The way they meet people and establish friendships is so different than the way we did this pre-internet era. Oy. It’s one of those things that makes parenting a challenge…as if there weren’t enough obstacles already!!
And am I the only one who sometimes feels as though she’s going around like the little bird in P.D. Eastman’s ARE YOU MY MOTHER? “Are you my friend?”
Are YOU my friend?
Ha! Again in the words of C.S. Lewis, “,“What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . . .”
And to answer your question, I sure hope so :).
And also? If you quote Louisa May Alcott, you’re my friend.
Hmmmm, where to begin? How about, as an introvert for over 50 years, I have resigned myself to having only one good friend at a time. No clue why, but that’s the way it always is. The worst part? Here in my adulthood, most (all) of these “single friends” have been through our church, where everyone’s upwardly mobile. As in, job transfers. I let myself get close to someone, let myself be “me,” and w/in a year or two, they or hubby get moved.out.of.town. Bummer. After 10 or so years of this, I promised myself that I wouldn’t get close to someone again – it hurt too much to be losing them always. Of course, that didn’t last… anyone want to take a guess what happened? Yup – moved. So here I sit, alone except for my family.
The other (huge) part of this is that my personality is all “out there” – as in, what you see (or hear) is what you get. I’m not abrasive (I’ve made sure of that), but I am honest and/or real. If something is wrong, it shows. If someone upsets me, it shows. Most people (women) can’t handle that kind of real-ness. Men do better with it – it’s the way they tend to be anyway.
so these are my two struggles with friendship. Please send help! 🙂
Hi Friend,
I think that friendships start with authenticity and vulnerability and grow with stewardship. When we open up to a person without our masks on and take a chance at being ourselves while accepting another, we learn so much and it actually makes it easier to give more of ourselves away, which in turn can cultivate deeper friendships. I’m not sure I have any ideas right now about resources … but I will mull it over. I think idea books are always nice … “101 meaningful ways to say Friend” …
We moved more than the average family when I was a child {Preacher’s Kid} and my first marriage was to a military man. I learned to make friends quickly, but not to sustain friendships. There are people I’ve loved dearly for a season scattered far and wide…but today when I realized I was in a bind tomorrow and needed some help, I couldn’t think of one person I felt comfortable calling and asking for an hour of their time. Not one. Made me sad.
Initiating acquaintances that have the potential to become friendships is hard for me. I am reserved and I find starting conversations with people I don’t know rather awkward although I am getting better at it. I don’t have very many close friends at all; five people come to mind and only one of those is one I would consider my best friend. Another is my counselor. The other three are either relatives of the first two or people I am growing closer to from my Sunday school class at church. My best friends and I have a friendship that would best be described as a “God thing” and quite honestly, she initiated the first conversations we had and she was more pursuant of something lasting than I was, not because I didn’t want her friendship but because, as an introvert, extroverts (like her) often come across as being a bit intense. In many ways, the two personality types speak different languages which makes communication rather tough. I had also been hurt before and believed the lie that finding a friend who truly wanted to be my friend and wouldn’t stab me in the back or otherwise betray me was going to be next to impossible. For us, our vastly different personalities but shared passion for Christ works. She’s never met a stranger while I am reserved, she’s a newlywed and I am single, she’s in her dream job (a nurse on the burn unit at a local hospital) and I have gone back to school for a second degree to figure out how to use my God-given passion to have my dream job. We are at totally different places in our lives and we see each other about once every six to eight weeks but when we get together, we find that we have gone or are going through similar situations amongst very different circumstances.
One question I do have (and I apologize of this has been asked already) is to effectively move beyond friendships of the past that have caused hurt and distrust and learn to trust again? Also, how do you learn to recognize signs that you need to be careful or there is impending danger ahead? Much of this comes from experience I know but if you’ve experienced these things in previous friendships, you tend to enter new friendships with a rather jaded perspective that can ruin blossoming trust and respect. Thank you!!
That should read “my best friend and I” not “my best friends and I.” And the first sentence of the last paragraph should say “how to effectively move beyond friendships of the past that have caused hurt and distrust and learn to trust again?” Sorry for all the mistakes!
I sat on the beach this week with a friend from high school. We graduated 35 years ago and have seen each other maybe a handful of times since. We gave thanks for God’s faithfulness to each of us through the years and discovered that, even now we are walking very similar paths.
One of the things I love about the CS Lewis passage you quoted is that God sets the table and invites the guests for one another. Friendship is a gift–not a reward for being discerning or having good taste or judgment. So I think part of it, especially in our later years, is opening our eyes to where God has placed us and what He’s up to in our lives.
And I think something similar has happened among my online friendships. Who knows why I clicked on one particular blog post vs. another? Yet, those simple acts of button clicking have led me to some of the dearest people on earth.
I am in my 50’s. We have recently moved to a different state. I tried to keep connected with my ‘friends’ that I left behind. Everyone seems to be too ‘busy’ to cultivate friendships anymore. I enjoy sending cards, emails, phone calls, but it seems to be a one way street. How has everyone become so busy that they do not even have time to live? Most of my ‘friends’ now are much older and have the time to commit to a real friendship! My husband and I really make a genuine effort not to be so busy that we don’t have time to enjoy friendships. Even our church family is too busy to really connect. We attend a Life Group at our church on a regular basis and it always seems rushed. When we get home, we think? ‘I started a conversation with so and so’ but I never got to finish it? In ministry? Everyone is running around like the place is on fire…always in a hurry but never too busy to have a ‘Starbucks’? We all just need to slow down and commit to real relationships, not just surface, superficial ‘Hollywood’ fakeness.
Funny timing, this. On Sunday night I realized that I don’t have a group of friends right now. I don’t have a group. Yes, sure, I have several groups of friends [from the past], but they are all scattered across the country. Or across the city and we don’t see each other enough to be a true, present-day group. I don’t have a place, a home, a set of faces that make me smile and let me cry. And you know what else I realized? … *whispering* … This is the first time in my life I’ve had to SEEK OUT a new group.
When I look back on my life so far, I realize (now) that I’ve never had to seek out a group of friends; they’ve just happened. Childhood – because we were there, we were friends. College – I moved into a dorm and found a group (two, actually) and joined a small group at the BSU and had a group. Then at every job, I had a group of co-workers/friends/family. And at our old church, simply walking into the Sunday school room meant we (eventually) had a group. And for the past two years at our church, we’ve had a group. But now we don’t. I don’t. And I don’t know where to find my new group. Or what to do, really, when I find it.
Sorry. This is an annoyingly long comment. But I’m just saying that I have no answers for you and lots of questions, because this topic is heavy on my mind and my heart right now.
Oh, my. I cannot even begin to tell you … well, maybe I can. 🙂 Here are my thoughts from 2011 (and I’m still learning—I think I may spend my whole life learning and learning about friendships and relationships).
https://monicasharman.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/enchanting-selflessness/
I am so excited about these resources that you are pulling together! You can count on my intense and frequent prayers as you work on it!!!!!!! xoxo
What a great idea! I have some friends that I have known for over 20 years and the most miraculous part of that is we all met at work… how often do work friends stay your friends for long after you have left the company? We have managed.. but it takes work! I have (THANKFULLY) lots of friends and each group seems to take a different tactic to keep connected.
These are my ways of keeping friendships:
1) I am a card girl. I still send cards in the mail the old fashioned way. Dayspring has been a great help in that too!
2) I am the birthday Guru of most of the groups. I be sure everyone knows whose birthday is when and then we do our best to get together and celebrate. It doesn’t always work but not for lack of trying.
3) Texts to keep in touch & prayer requests
4) FB posts for those I have to track that way. =)
5) Emails too
Hope that helps!
Interesting to come across your blog today! I just wrote a post dealing with close friendship. I, too, have moved around several times as a wife of a professional athlete. I have learned how to cultivate and intentionally maintain my close friendships. My friends are an absolute piece of me and are as important to me as my husband and children. Would love to talk further friend!
Hmm, well, like Mollianne, I moved frequently as a child. But, for me it was always a challenge making new friends. I am a quiet, reserved introvert. I am good at getting to know others, as I am a good listener (and people tend to like to talk about themselves), but I am not good at sharing me.
I only have one long time, deep, 2-way friendship. We can tell one another anything! We are there for one another any time!
I do have a developing friendship with someone 20 years older than me from church. We are part of a small group that has been meeting weekly to encourage one another in the life/relationship/spiritual goals we are trying to achieve. She has been down the road I am currently traveling and has great insight. When we talk I do not feel there is any age difference. She is simply becoming a friend.
The funny thing about our group is that there is someone who I do like and is my same age with kids a little younger than mine and someone else whose life circumstances are very similar to my new friend, who by the way never had any children, yet she and I have hit it off. We have begun leaning on one another outside of our weekly meetings and support one another through phone calls, e-mails and texts.
So, there is no telling who, how or why people connect. May just be a God thing?
Oh so many thoughts here.
1. Friendship takes time–it’s a real investment. And right now, my time is kind of limited, so I don’t think I’m doing a great job at the friendship thing. (Funny, because I’m supposed to submit a piece about friendship to another blogger. I have no idea what to say, so this is helpful.)
2. I wonder what I have modeled/taught my daughters about being a true friend. Because, to be honest, they have heard me complain and gripe about almost every friend I have. Ugh. But I also hope they have seen me act as a friend by being there for them through lots of life’s ups and downs.
3. I enjoy spending time with women who are younger than me. I find them refreshing, full of energy, and actually willing to take to heart any advice I might have to share. What’s up with that?
4. I have been blessed to have 20+ year friendships with the women in our couple’s small group. Over the years we have seen the death of one of our members, the remarriage of her husband, two divorces, and lots and lots of kid drama. We’ve pretty much done a lot of life with these people, and I am so, so grateful for them. We haven’t always made the same decisions about a lot of things, but in the end, having friendships that go that long and that deep is a true blessing.
Like Elaine noted before I was a shy introvert during my childhood and most of my adulthood. It was awkward/scary to speak much in public or even with friends. Thus I didn’t have many friends growing up and still don’t. Most of that was due to my hearing issues.
I find people being authentic and real. If asked how are you I want to know your true feelings. Talk about life to me. Be yourself with me. Like Emily P. Freeman states in Grace for the Good Girl “take off your masks and be real”.
I will be sending you an email soon regarding this. Too much for a comment box.????