Friendship

As a friend, I’ve behaved abominably, historically overstating relationships and never qualifying their value. But am I any different than anyone else? We throw the word and concept of friendship around without consideration.

“I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Jane.”

“What are friends for?”

“I’m having a party this weekend and inviting all of my closest friends.”

“We’ve been best friends since high school.”

“I’m having dinner with my work friends.”

“I don’t like the friends you’re hanging around.”

What is friendship? Some common ground between people where they can equally exchange tangibles and abstracts. Give and take. You invite me over for dinner and I bring dessert. I tell you my problems, you console me and give advice. We may argue from time to time, but we always make amends.

Do this over time and we’re friends.

Shit happens when this over simplified arrangement gets trampled on. You hate my dessert and I tell the world about your problems. Aside from culinary distaste and breaches of confidentiality, there’s jealousy, well‑being or lack‑there‑of, success and failure, and all the other permutations of life.

Let’s face it, no one is an island and we all leapfrog through life for one reason or another. Mostly shiny object syndrome. It applies to people as well as things.

But I propose that friendship, like marriage, is nothing more than an arrangement. Both are based upon mutual, prearranged objectives. Marriage merely includes extended family and babies. And love‑making aside, it’s the friendship that withstands time.