Friendship
Powerful. Fleeting. Ephemeral. IRL. Virtual. Emotional. Shallow. Situational. Painful. Intimate. Topical.
What do you think of when you hear the word friendship?
When I first saw the notification from David Amerland this morning of his Sunday Read weekly post and the subject, I knew that I needed to read it. And yet, somehow I didn’t. “Life” got in the way, even though I really had nothing pressing this morning at all. I don’t know why, either. But this evening I saw Gina Fiedel’s share and thoughts (https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GinaFiedel/posts/6B1xMfY9H8d) on his article and I read enough that I was hooked and had to read all of it. And then I had to read the original, and I’m so glad. It’s kind of interesting, though, because as I read their thoughts and followed the connections, I realized that I’m also partly writing this out of a sense of guilt at neglecting what I perceive as 2 valued friendships on G+. Isn’t that odd?
Friendship 2.0
Think back just 15 years to 2001. Message boards were the primary method of online interaction and were mostly reserved for geeks. Email was still foreign to many people. Social media didn’t even exist. The idea of having friends whom you’d never met in person in far away places didn’t really exist except as “pen pals.” Remember that? Did I just date myself? 🙂 Pretty much ALL of your friends were, as we now say, “in real life.” They were usually, as David implies, the people with whom you would actually watch Friends and ER and whatever else was on “Must See TV” on NBC.
But how life has evolved and changed, eh? The “new” version of friendship is far more varied.
Friends vs. Acquaintances
In the USA, pretty much anyone you meet and spend some time with, whether IRL or online, qualifies as a “friend.” I guess Facebook “Friends” really changed the definition of that. While studying in Germany for my sophomore year of college, however, I first came into contact with a real distinction between a Friend (Freund) and an Acquaintance (Bekannte). Maybe Americans are just too lazy to say such a long word and so use “friend” so loosely? But in Germany, at least at that time (having not been back in a long time, I don’t know if it’s still the case), everyone distinguished between your true friends and people whom you knew casually. In fact, true friends were acknowledged to be few and far between, and MOST of the people you knew qualified only as Bekannten. And I liked that.
By that model, one would define most, if not all, of the people we meet online as mere acquaintances. But that very idea is part of why I felt some guilt pushing me to respond to both David and Gina. Because, despite the fact that we’ve never met (I genuinely hope to change that with both of them one day), I feel such a close kinship with them that I feel with even fewer people I know in person, right here in Charlotte, where I’ve lived for the last 17.5 years. But given how little interaction I’ve had with either of them for several months now, you couldn’t guess that, eh? So does that count? Is there a line in the sands of time after which a friendship fades to something less? What’s the minimum level of interaction to “count” as a friend? Aren’t these such strange questions? Have I had too much to drink? (No, just being silly, no alcohol was harmed in the composition of this post, although it seems like a good idea the more I write. Hang on, let me grab a cold beer, ’cause I feel like a refreshing cold adult beverage with friends would be appropriate about now. BRB)
Ahhhh, Warsteiner Premium Dunkel, that’s good. Now, where was I? Oh yes, musing on the nature of friendship with 2 people whom I’ve never met and haven’t spoken with much recently, but whom I still think of as friends. Or at least, whom I want as friends. There are some others: Sanjiv Manifest and Cherie Manifest. Alexandra Riecke-Gonzales Lauri Novak Mark Bruce lynn hughes and Kalebra Kelby Mark Traphagen And maybe another 20 or so. But isn’t that interesting, too? I “Follow” over 4,000 people on G+, many of whom I admire tremendously and from whom I’ve learned a great deal, but whom I would call acquaintances more than friends.
I feel like I’ve reached the point that I’m mostly rambling, with no coherent point, rhyme or reason. No, I’m still only 1/3 of the way into the beer, I’m just feeling whimsical. Like I can be with friends.
Maybe that was the whole point? Why I was feeling guilty? I just needed a reminder to take time to be with those kindred spirits and minds, whether near or far, IRL or virtual. To remind them of why I want them in my life on some level, for some reason. Who cares if it’s coded into our DNA – just do it. You’ll be glad you did. I am.
Come to think of it, I haven’t spoken with my childhood friend, John, in way too long. I am going to call him right after this.
Cheers to friends!
Originally shared by David Amerland
Friends
When the sitcom series Friends (https://goo.gl/ifXiI) ended on 6th May 2004 after ten years it was like a spell had been broken. The series had held us in its thrall with the premise and promise of an almost impossible dream: a set of friends going through life, facing everything we did (or potentially could) and muddling through it the same way we did (or might have done) with the exception of the unwavering support of each other.
Along the way it gave us moments of hilarity that stuck in our minds (and hearts) – http://goo.gl/rA6jr7 and raised the not entirely unnatural question of whether life could be made to imitate fiction. Whether we could form relationships that lasted beyond the circumstantial pressures prescribed by where we lived and where we worked? Could we, in short, make lifelong friends that valued our friendship rather than what our acquaintance did for them?
We need friends, apparently, to survive – http://goo.gl/J2AOkd. And unsurprisingly, perhaps, friends play a pivotal role in the person we become: https://goo.gl/SP8YHe. They become part of the landscape we live in and not having any may mark the point where we may have ceased to matter: https://goo.gl/CVLErs. Recent studies suggest that friends are not just the result of the hardwiring in our brain: https://goo.gl/SSw9Hy but also the effect of our need to feel trust (which I only tangentially touched upon in my latest book on the subject: http://goo.gl/QQ4LfL).
Such is our need for friendship and its sense of it that even the announcement that the Friends reunion is going to be a little incomplete due to Matthew Perry’s professional commitments (http://goo.gl/2eEzrN) is enough to make us feel disappointed.
Friendship is such a powerful, hidden and frequently unspoken force in our lives that right now, even as you are reading this, you must wonder just how it is morphing because of technology. When so many of us are now embedded in vast, digital social networks, how does this affect us? Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist, wondered the same thing and went looking for answers, some of which may surprise you: https://goo.gl/ibc07i.
Christakis’ research suggests something I have been mentioning in the Sunday Reads for some time now. Namely, that the moment we get online and connect, we have a huge responsibility resting on our shoulders. The change in the world we want to see, takes place in the changes we affect, in small but important ways in the minds and hearts of every person we touch and who touches us, in return.
This makes the behavior of the world’s largest social network of friends a little harder to fathom (http://goo.gl/vRsqoC). In retrospect they could have accessed existing research and, also, gone about it in a slightly more ethical way. Sentiment is both contagious and analyzable: http://goo.gl/6xwOvF and there is inherent value in it. In another TED Talk Claud Williams shares some of the ways friendship (even with strangers) becomes critically important to us: https://goo.gl/S9E2iE.
If friends and friendships are that important you will ask, is there any way of predicting how they will go and perhaps how important they will be? Dr Sheldon Cooper (https://goo.gl/5wXELy) from The Big Bang Theory turns out to have the answer to that with his “friendship Algorithm”: http://goo.gl/NzVZ3Z.
The social network site Forever Friends (yeah, the one known about its cute teddy bears) has done some research on the subject and claims to have cracked the “friendship equation” http://goo.gl/2WlboE for that “perfect” friendship. Screenplay writer Jonathan Stokes has a similar take on friendship where he suggests it’s based on a combination of value over time: http://goo.gl/SE0WK2.
An equation for friendship, as it happens, describes not just how people relate to people but also how countries and companies relate to each other: http://goo.gl/vXIwR and the secret to this according to Cornell University research is “structural balance” – stability: http://goo.gl/c4Qs5N and that state, interestingly enough can be a polarized one (think Democrats and Republicans as a classic example) or a more homogenous, optimized one where the shared values and emergent culture create a dynamic of mutual tolerance and respect (there are parts of Google+ that totally exemplify this model).
Now that we know that we can use mathematics to model at least some aspect of the expected lifespan of a friendship and its value are we any wiser? Maybe. The best bet perhaps is Bob Bales’ 5Fs: https://goo.gl/p5hsN6 which reflect, in their own way Christakis’ observation that “The spread of good and valuable things is key to the value of our connections.”
In this space, frequently through this weekly column, people have met and become friends. Connections have been made and I know, for a fact, that I have met many of you and been enriched by the shared journey, the exploration of ideas and values and the sharing of concerns, information and interests.
This is not a call for a “Let’s all get along” kind of thing, but a call for a “let’s all benefit from this” one. And by benefiting we need to feel a sense of the person behind the connection. We need to feel respect for their views however opposite they may be. We need to want to be open rather than closed. And for that we have to be willing to trust. First, in ourselves and then in others.
And through these seemingly small, inconsequential thoughts and actions we actually change the shape of the world. We affect how ideas are formed and opinions are made. We disarm the ability of the silo-ed organizations of the past (the newsmakers, the lawmakers, the faith keepers and the authority holders) to tell us how to think, to determine who we are and to control who we can become.
Through our connections and our friendships, through the relatively innocuous nature of what we do here, we become the disruptive force that changes everything and we determine what the future rushing towards us, will be.
Not a bad way to start a Sunday then. So hopefully you’ve got sufficient coffee to get you there and more than enough donuts, croissants, cookies and chocolate cake to sustain the effort of the journey. Have one awesome Sunday, wherever you are.