Circles of Friendship

My two most recent posts were each written in a day, the second in one sitting, which is a refreshing change from the way my blog writing has usually proceeded for the past year or so. I have a number of posts that I started and haven’t finished, either because the inspiration failed me or I just got busy. Lately I’ve been trying to go back and complete some of them, like the one about my father.

Here is another that had been languishing unfinished… until today.

One of the more popular conversations themes I get into with my English conversation groups is on the topic of friendship. It includes some thought-provoking questions such as:

• Are friends more important than family these days?
• Do two people need to have a lot in common in order to be friends?
• Can a friendship last a lifetime?
• Did you have any imaginary friends as a child?
• Can men and women be “just friends,” platonically?

But perhaps the most interesting question is about the definition of a friend. What does this word really mean?

When asked to define what a friend is and how many friend they have, my students’ opinions are very wide-ranging. Some have a very limited definition of friendship, and as a result, report having few real friends. Others, however, use a looser definition and suggest that they have many friends.

What’s difficult, everyone agrees, is that it is very hard to categorize these relationships, because they exist at more levels of closeness and importance than we have words to describe them. We have the word friend, but that seems to cover everything from just a bit above acquaintance to a person who is intimately close.

So, in many cases, we are left with the word acquaintance, which describes someone whom you have met and know just a little bit, and the word friend, which seems to cover everything else. We also have the term best friend, but for many of my students, this is what friend means on its own. That seems to leave undefined a large number of people who impact our lives.

Best Friend?

Many people like to talk about having “best friends,” but the use of the term can create problems. When you announce that one or two people are your best friends, you eliminate from that category others who might be close and who might consider themselves to be among your closest friends. They can be hurt to learn that they are not as high in your estimation as they had thought.

And it can be awkward when you tell someone that he or she is your best friend, only to discover that the feeling is not completely mutual. It’s almost as bad as when you tell a girl (or a guy, if you are a girl) that you love her, only to see that uncomfortable, “I don’t know what to say” look in her eyes. When you’ve gotten up the courage to say those three little words, only to realize that they are less than welcome, well… it sort of makes you want to crawl off and hide under a rock for a millennium or two.

The Effect of Social Networking

The meaning of the word friend has been further diluted by its use in social networking. A person might have hundreds of “friends” on Facebook or similar sites, but how many of them would he or she call friends in real life? And how many social networking “friends” are just friends of friends, or friends of friends of friends? How many are just people trying to expand their contact network for marketing or other promotional purposes? A lot!

Nothing has cheapened the value of the word friend more than social networking sites. They should be called “contacts” or something like that… not “friends.” Friendship can only be assessed in the real world; what transpires online is “virtual,” which by definition is something falsely fabricated in a realm that doesn’t really exist.

Friendship over Time and Distance

Often in our lives, a person who was very close at one point moves out of your life. For a time, you do and share everything together, and it’s a true friendship. But then perhaps one of you moves away (distance). You try to keep in touch (and the Internet does help with that), but the distance changes things over time. You just cease being such integral parts of each other’s lives; other people enter and take up the time and closeness that the first person had. Things change, life goes on.

Alternatively, you might drift apart over time not due to distance but due to changes in life circumstances. This often happens, for example, when one gets married and starts a family, while the other continues living the single life. The conditions of their lives just don’t match up so closely anymore. Work, relationships and other factors can have similar effects.

In these cases, one of two things can happen: the friendship can fizzle out more or less completely, or it can shift to a kind of relationship where time and distance don’t really diminish its deepness. In the second case, the two people might not see each other for years and perhaps rarely communicate, but when they do have a chance to meet and catch up, the time seems to have disappeared and they are able to pick up almost where they left off.

Clearly the first case was not meant to be a lasting friendship, while the second obviously is. I have had the first case, of course, as have we all. And I have very good examples of the second. There are several people in the USSA whom I have rarely seen during my seven or so years in Ukraine, and with whom I communicate only by occasional FB message, e-mail or phone call. But when I do return, we pick up almost as though no time has passed.

Another post I am working on concerns the idea of soul mates and soul friends. These are kindred souls who come into each others’ lives repeatedly over multiple incarnations, and, thus, the bond is unusually strong. Perhaps if the friendship sort of peters out over distance and time, it means the person was not one of those individuals you are close to in the spiritual realm. And if you are able to maintain contact and closeness for years, even without seeing each other, the person really is one of your soul friends. I’ll explore that idea more when I finally get that post finished.

Circles of Friendship

Getting back to the matter of definition, I have always seen friendship manifesting as a series of concentric circles. I am at the center, of course, because it is my personal universe of friendship, and the people in my life have places on various circles around my center. For them, they are in the center, and I am someplace on one of their circles. The number of circles a person might count out from the center depends entirely on how that person views the nature of his or her friendships. Here is how I see it.

The innermost circle is where the closest people reside. These are the people with whom, at the moment, I have the most in common, spend the most time, share my deepest thoughts and feelings, and trust the most. We have the most mutuality. Some might call such people best friends, but as I said earlier, I don’t like to use that term except very privately.

There are never many people on this circle – maybe two or three at most. Often there is only one. If you are in a relationship, your partner should be on that circle; if he or she is not, there is a problem. And it has been my experience that often there might really be no one occupying a place on that circle; sometimes we are just at such a point in life when no one is really that close.

I don’t think I have ever really had more than two people on this circle, and for most of my time in Ukraine, I’d have to say there has been either one or none. Presently, I'd have to say that I'm not sure whether there is anyone on that circle or not... which probably means not.

The next circle out is where most of the people we comfortably call “friends” exist. These are people we know pretty well; meet and spend time with at some level of frequency, either in a group or a twosome; share some experiences, thoughts and feelings; and generally feel pretty comfortable being around. They are not “everyday” parts of your life, but still quite regular.

The number of people on this circle depends really on the person at the center. For a very sociable person, there would be more than for someone who is more of an introvert. I suppose for me this circle averages around five or six people. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a bit less.

Outward from this circle is a third circle composed of people who are more than acquaintances, but not really friends in a true sense. Work colleagues and other semiregular associates usually exist here. You have some influence on each other’s lives, usually in some specific way, but it pretty much ends there.

For me, this is a large circle composed of students, teachers and others whom I have gotten to know, but don’t really interact with beyond the circumstances of our knowing each other.

People who are just acquaintances could make up yet a fourth circle before you get to the open space where all the other people in the world exist, the space filled with the faceless strangers who move all around us. It seems to me that there is a difference between acquaintances and the people who occupy that third circle. But I am sure that some people could see acquaintances as belonging to the third circle, while others might relegate acquaintances to the open space of strangers.

Moving Between Circles

And the circles are not static, they are dynamic. A person might move from one circle to another, either closer or more distant, depending on how things change between the two of you. Sometimes you might spend a little more time with a person from that second circle, and he or she moves to the inner circle. Or a person might move back because one of you moved or just stopped spending as much time together.

Anyway… that’s a capsule of one theory of friendship. There are others. And there are myriad other questions about friendship like, “What qualities make a friend?” “How long does it take before a person can be called a real friend?” or “How can two people (of opposite genders) comfortably make the leap from friendship to a full-blown relationship… or is it even possible?”

Probably it’s better not to think too much about the questions. Just enjoy having friends, and try to be the best friend to them that you can be.

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