friend-lines

[friend-lines]

You can only know yourself to a certain point, in that all the introspection in the world can't compete with your ego always inserting itself into situations and mucking it up. And it turns out that your friends know you better, anyway--so much so that their assessment of your character can predict, more than you can, when you're going to die.

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Two people lying to each other isn't a friendship, it's a Raymond Carver story.

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Like romantic relationships, many friendships begin with one person pursuing the other — and it’s not desperate or weird. It’s smart.

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After 30, people often experience internal shifts in how they approach friendship. Self-discovery gives way to self-knowledge, so you become pickier about whom you surround yourself with, said Marla Paul, the author of the 2004 book “The Friendship Crisis: Finding, Making, and Keeping Friends When You’re Not a Kid Anymore.” “The bar is higher than when we were younger and were willing to meet almost anyone for a margarita,” she said.

[friend-lines]

When you’re a kid, or in high school, or in college, you don’t really work too hard on your friend situation. Friends just kind of happen.

For a bunch of years, you’re in a certain life your parents chose for you, and so are other people, and none of you have that much on your plates, so friendships inevitably form. Then in college, you’re in the perfect friend-making environment, one that hits all three ingredients sociologists consider necessary for close friendships to develop: “proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.” More friendships happen.

Maybe they’re the right friends, maybe they’re not really, but you don’t put that much thought into any of it—you’re more of a passive observer.

Once student life ends, the people in your life start to shake themselves into more distinct tiers.

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Even when we swear up and down that our friends are the most important people in our lives, it can be surprisingly difficult to prioritize platonic love. Of all the traditional milestones and events to celebrate them, precisely zero have to do with friendship. (Unless you count the bachelor/ette party, which, when you think about it, only celebrates friendship in relation to romantic love.) We talk ourselves in circles about the importance of work-life balance, but take it for granted that “life” is shorthand for “caring for a sick relative” or “taking the kids to soccer practice,” not “hours of deep conversation with a best friend.” This has real consequences. Need to work from home because your kid’s got the day off school? Fine. Need to leave work early because your good friend is going through a tough time and needs some one-on-one with you? Try getting that explanation past your boss.

Friendship Breakups Are Our First Heartbreaks - NYmag.com (via annfriedman)

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Judging by the research, the panic merchants are wrong: social networks don’t replace offline friendships, or turn users into basement-dwelling zombies, unable to converse face-to-face. Nonetheless, Dunbar’s work does suggest something troubling about modern friendship.

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I have never had this level of transparency with a girlfriend before. I’ve always had girlfriends, yes, but I was always striving to have something better, to be better. For me, the real life—very IRL—practice of “female relationships” has been a flawed experience that has forced me to question exactly what it is that I want from another woman. I’m constantly, actively, trying to figure out the social parameters to engage on a deeper level, and just be a good human, and friend.

I value a relationship where I can be open—not aggrandize each other’s failures to mutual friends, not having to look over your shoulders with cursory judgment. I value these relationships because they’re rare, at least for me.

After a few failed romantic relationships I realized I had constantly considered men to be my saviors. I had consistently betrayed myself, and my instincts, by sacrificing stronger relationships with my female friends and with myself, for some false dream. Harnessed by a desire to be saved, like a rom-com, I wanted my Mr. Big, and thought the best friends and me, in tow, would fall into place after I figured out my man, eventually.

Recently, it hit me—I could be alone, romantically, forever. Emboldened by that thought, after years of abusing my emotions, I decided to focus on self-cultivation and female friends.

[friend-lines]

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

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Gilmore Girls offered something too rare in pop culture: a deep platonic female relationship that didn't come prepackaged, but instead developed in front of viewers' eyes.

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For one, they’re in prison. Secondly, there is an unrequited love aspect to this relationship, which makes for moments of great tension and heartbreak, but these two characters have each other’s best interest at heart. This is a friendship that even teetered off for a majority of the...

[friend-lines]

It’s true that people form bonds based on having at least some shared interests and values and experiences. But for white people who are aware of the overwhelming whiteness of their friend group, there also has to be a willingness to step outside their comfort zone.

. . .

People of color generally have had to adapt to white people, because of existing societal power dynamics and also the numbers game,” says a friend who is South Asian–American. The reverse has not historically been true. Perhaps the best advice, then, for white people who want to befriend people of color is to adapt to them. Recognize and acknowledge those social power dynamics, not ignore them. And try to form a friendship based on the interests you do share.

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In the first place, friendship helps people make better judgments. So much of deep friendship is thinking through problems together: what job to take; whom to marry. Friendship allows you to see your own life but with a second sympathetic self.

Second, friends usually bring out better versions of each other. People feel unguarded and fluid with their close friends. If you’re hanging around with a friend, smarter and funnier thoughts tend to come burbling out.

Finally, people behave better if they know their friends are observing. Friendship is based, in part, on common tastes and interests, but it is also based on mutual admiration and reciprocity. People tend to want to live up to their friends’ high regard. People don’t have close friendships in any hope of selfish gain, but simply for the pleasure itself of feeling known and respected.

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“The cultural ban on having sex with your friends is an inevitable offshoot of a societal belief that the only acceptable reason to have sex is to lead to a monogamous marriagelike relationship.”

― Dossie Easton, The ethical slut : a practical guide to polyamory, open relationships & other adventures (via whenthesunrose)

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What is it about them, our mean friends? They treat us badly, they don't call us back, they cancel plans at the last minute, and yet we come back for more. Popular bullies exist in business, politics, everywhere. How do they stay so popular?

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You think relationships are difficult? Try friendships. Try courting someone in order to convince them to join you in some nameless, shapeless Platonic complication — forever. Convince an adult stranger that you are worth a healthy slice of their limited time and energy without the prize of sex or romance.

Laura Jayne Martin (via speakless)