Friendship

Being out of my culture, away from all of the people I previously knew, learning to adapt to a new culture, add making all new friends has given me some interesting insights into the role and importance of friends in our lives. I recently wrote a long email to a good friend of mine on that topic and I thought it might be interesting to share here:



It’s funny that you have been thinking about what constitutes friendship and relationships with others, I have been thinking a lot about that too.

When I was in Mauritania I went a little crazy. It’s my own fault and I eventually recovered but for a little while there I lost the ability to relate to other people in a meaningful/friendful way; I was more or less emotionally dead. That experience shook me up quite a bit and ever since I have been appreciating the value of having close friends in a new way. Also, being that I have said goodbye to everyone I knew and made all new friends twice in the last two years now I have been thinking a lot about how our generation is the first to be able to maintain “close” friendships with many people we rarely, if ever, see. We have all these friends from all over the place and with internet we can stay in contact with them incredibly easily though they are scattered. One can develop close relationships with those around you through shared experiences, like your friends from grade school, but it is nice to have people that you have a close connection to even though you have shared very few experiences, I get more emails from someone I spent two days with than I do from anyone I grew up with. Many, maybe most, of my closest friends do not know each other. The question is, to fulfill our mutual obligations as friends, is it enough that I stay in contact with them or are they too dispersed and I should focus more on those around me?

Being in the Peace Corps you are part of this unusual but awesome network of friends. Any time I meet a PCV now I am immediately at ease with them. I can show up to a party of volunteers that I have never met before and it’s not awkward at all because I have this shared experience with them. Sort of like the bonds we had in the IED class, but magnified and with a much larger number of people. Also in the Peace Corps, the people who are around you is changing constantly, even if you don’t get kicked out of the country you were serving in. When I was in training I was with one group of people, when I went out to my site there was a different group of people in my region, then the old volunteers left, the new ones did not come, but we were kicked out and I started the cycle anew in a different place; every six months or so some or most of the people around me change. I am constantly saying goodbye and meeting new people. Also since we spend so much time out at our sites throughout our service we don’t even really get the chance to know each other through the normal interactions you would expect. I am close friends with many people of whom I know almost nothing about. It is almost disturbing how easily friends come and go here. Yet at the same time it is fascinating that friendships can be so fluid, coming and going like the tide. From what I understand, being in DC is a lot like that too; high turn over of people, everyone looking to meet new friends, and general feeling of ease when encountering strangers in the same situation.

In your email you also brought up another element that I struggle with: work. The work that I am doing now is like play to me. Very little of it is onerous and all most all of it is terribly exciting and fun to do. When you are overworked and it feels like it, its easy to cut back and just hang out with friends. However, when your work feels like play but still accomplishes goals that are very meaningful to you, it is harder to slow down and make time for the people close to you. I struggle with this dilemma a lot. Often other volunteers will be hanging out just shooting the shit or watching a movie and I’ll be around but still moving around some what like a work ghost; I am there but I have this sort of tunnel vision just for what I am doing and it is hard to slow down enough to participate in what everyone else is doing. Even when I force myself to stop, work/play is on the back of my mind. On one hand, what is so wrong with that? I am enjoying what I am doing and I find it tremendously rewarding. Is it a problem that it consumes my life if it does so in an agreeable way? If I have close friends all over the world that I value more that many of the people who are close in proximity to me whom I almost never see and I am finding it hard to find time to hang out even with those who ARE in close proximity, many of whom I count as my good friends but actually have spent little time with, what sort of situation is that? Is that proper friendship on any level?

That question aside, I do love that I have close friends who are spread out across the globe and I never wish to change that. However, I think that you must be careful that you always maintain or cultivate relationships with people that actually are close enough to you to physically interact. I love that you are my friend and love every time I hear from you, but if I can’t shoot you with a squirt gun from time to time then I need to make sure that I have other friends around that I can. Also I think that no matter how rewarding your work is, it cannot replace the value of enjoying your relationships with people close to you. Although both add meaning and richness to your life two are not comparable, each is important in its own way. Hanging out with friends and just watching a movie or taking life slow does not save the world, but it will save you. We need to unwind and hanging out with your good friends is the best way to do that. It keeps you centered, reminds you that you are human, and keeps you from driving yourself into becoming a feelingless work-bot. Also, it’s a heck of a lot of fun.

As it turns out, every animal has different predilections for interactions in social groups; what’s more these social groups have a pre-established size. Just as we can’t easily remember more than seven to ten numbers in our head at one time (its not a coincidence phone numbers have that many digits) we also can’t keep more that 150 people in our social “group.” I don’t know this but I would argue that when those 150 people are scattered all over the place and times in your life, when many of them don’t know each other, it becomes difficult to juggle even that many. Sure Facebook will inform you what they are up to, but that becomes just a blip of information to note with all of the other blips. I think the time period we are currently inhabiting provides us with some unique opportunities to cultivate deep and lasting friendships with people faster than has ever been possible. It also allows us to keep those friendships alive over great distance. We can stay close friends with someone we met once even though we almost never see them. At the same time, we can also rely on the same attitudes and tools to put a façade of friendship on our lives that keeps us up to date with the people in our lives but does not go deeper than that because we are only allowing time for superficial encounters. I think the ease of communication gives us a false sense of connection. I am more informed of my friend’s birthdays now than I have ever been, I have a calendar of them that pops up every time I open my email, but I bet I haven’t been to one more birthday party than I would have otherwise because of it. Its easy to forget that knowing what is going on in someone’s life is not at all the same as being there for it. You get lulled into a false sense of participation. Wall posts and genuine interaction are not the same thing. They help you to maintain that link with other people but they are not what friendship is.

The technology and lifestyles we have do not doom us, they just provide the temptation to become complacent with the ease and pace of communication we can use to keep our social networks alive; alive but not living. It is essential that we recognize this fact and find the time to have real interactions. Going from work to the bar or club till exhaustion to sleep and then work again does not always count. Drugging ourselves is an easy way to unwind but when it becomes a pattern, and I am not even talking about alcoholism here, it feeds the cycle of superficial relationships. Your mind can be just as absent from your interactions with your friends when you are partying as when you are at work even though the location and activities are different.

So what can we do? If our connectivity today allows us to find and keep close friends in special ways, then do it. Just realize that if you want to keep the friendships really meaningful, you are going to have to go out of your way to see them from time to time. I stopped going to fast food restaurants a while ago and discovered that I much preferred to find old friends to eat with even if that meant driving six hours out of my way just to have lunch. Here in West Africa it is culturally very important to greet everyone you know when you pass by and if you haven’t seen someone in a while to go out of your way just to greet them. At first I was frustrated with the fact that whenever I was in a hurry I would have to slow down to extensively greet everyone that I knew along the way. Then one day I thought about it more. Where was it exactly that I was headed to that was so important that I did not have time to stop and say hello to all of the friends I passed by? When I thought about it that way, only life and death situations seemed more important. Ever since realizing this I have enjoyed the custom here. In the morning I make the rounds around my village just to say hello to my friends and family, even though I know I will likely see them later in the day and greet them again. In America the phrase time is money is a cliché, but generally reflects our feeling. That phrase is well known here as a way to understand American culture. However, what is missing is the companion phrase to African culture: time is relationships. Having experienced both I think that both cultures could benefit from a little of the other.

This is approaching the length of an epic novel so I will leave you with one final thought. They say that it is important to stop and smell the roses from time to time. I think this is true, roses are worth a sniff. However, lets not forget that its equally important to stop and smell our friends from time to time. Although they might not have showered, the company they provide can be just as sweet.