True Friendship

Serious question: Do you know who your friends are? What makes your friends your friends?

Last night I sat on the couch in my apartment with an old friend and we cried together. She is going through a hard time in her career, the same thing I went through five years ago. Fittingly, it was this friend who stood by me as I went through my hard time and now I was doing the same for her. We cried, but not because it was sad; we cried because the more we talked, the more we realized how similar we are, how much our beliefs and values align. The emotional intensity of it all was so overwhelming that we both ended up in tears.

The experience was jarring for me. Not because I minded crying or sharing that kind of experience with a friend. It was jarring because sitting there and feeling what a close friendship is, I realized that a lot of people that I call "good friends" aren’t really good friends at all. I realized how readily I use terms like “good friend” or “close friend” with people I’ll never have this kind of experience with. 

In this age of omniconnectedness, words like “network,” “community” and even “friends” no longer mean what they used to. Networks don’t exist on LinkedIn. A community is not something that happens on a blog or on Twitter. And a friend is more than someone whose online status we check.  A friend is an emotional bond, just like friendship is a human experience. What I've learned is that I've too often confused the weak bonds I have with people I know with the strong bonds I have with friends. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is.

A friend is someone with whom we share deep trust. The strong bond we have with a friend means that person will be there for us no matter what. The reason I made it through my depression a few years ago was because someone was there for me at a time when I could offer nothing in return. The strong bond of friendship is not always a balanced equation; friendship is not always about giving and taking in equal shares. Instead, friendship is grounded in a feeling that we know exactly who will be there for us when we need something, no matter what or when.

There is a difference between vulnerability and telling people everything about ourself. Vulnerability is a feeling. Telling everyone about ourself is just facts and details. The problem is the more we share about ourselves on Facebook, for example, the more we confuse all that information with having others “get to know us.” Someone can look through our pictures, read our comments and opinions and start to think they know who we are, but they don’t. They only know what they see and read. Worse, the feeling they may have toward us is one-sided.

This phenomenon is called a parasocial relationship -- a relationship in which one person knows much more about the other. This is what happens with celebrities. Because we can read about their public lives in the tabloids and hear about what they are doing on TMZ, we think we know them. But we don’t know anything about who they are. In our modern world, however, we are all celebrities and we all live semipublic lives. Others can read about what we’re doing and who we know and what we like. They can start to form bonds with us, but those bonds are one-sided and they are not the basis for real, close friendship. The reality is those people are acquaintances -- a term we rarely hear anymore.

There are lots of people who tell me they are my friend. They seem to act like friends, but they aren’t really friends. I don’t, and probably won't ever, share that kind of deep, strong relationship with them.

I have one business relationship who, when he introduces me to people, introduces me as “my close friend, Simon.” Every time he does so, it makes me uneasy, because we’re not close friends. I’m not sure we’re even friends. Another professional relationship, almost from the day we met, would tell me, “this is the start of a long and close friendship.” He acted like a friend too. He would send me e-mails to say hi, call to chat, and he’d want to hang out when we were in the same city. But when we couldn’t agree on the terms of a formal business relationship, all of a sudden my “new close friend” stopped calling, stopped e-mailing and no longer wanted to spend time with me.

As my life becomes even more public, I meet lots of people and I form genuine friendships with some, but most are just acquaintances or professional relationships. The problem is that there are lots of people who think they know me. They think they are my friends. Yet friendship is too quixotic to be formed by a decision. It’s a feeling more like love. We can’t decide to be friends with someone. We can’t request it. It just happens.

The internet is good at connecting people with common interests. We can easily form weak bonds with people online. And those relationships are good and have real value, but strong bonds, trust and deep friendships require physical interaction -- and lots of it.

The lesson I learned this week is more of a reminder. I have too often confused the weak bonds I have with people I know with the strong bonds I have with people who are my friends. When I run the names of the people I call “good friends” through this new filter, I realize that I don’t have as many good friends as I thought. And that’s not a bad thing, because the ones I do have I value even more.

 

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Comments

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They only know what they see and read. Worse, the feeling they may have toward us is one-sided.

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very inspiring and thought-provoking. just because someone doesn‘t love you the way you want them to, doesn’t mean they don‘t love you with all they have.

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The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves. ( W. Penn)

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He is a good friend that speaks well of us behind our backs.

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If your morals make you dreary. depend upon it, they are wrong. （Robert Louis Stevenson, British novelist）

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It is great to read an entry written from heart rather than just keystrokes. Thanks for providing great content.

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The road chosen in yesterday, please not return your head again and again. Regardless it ever gave you more delights or sadness.

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WOW!! Hats off to your research and content quality. Keep it up.

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Someone tell me "If you want to know the quality of tea put it in hot water".

[jamie flinchbaugh]

A good read. My personal preference is I'd rather have 5 true friends than 100 acquaintances.

[lenny97]

This is exactly the sentiment I have looking at today's generation. It is all about where true friendship starts and the virtual internet life ends. We try to keep this alive in our kids.

[Hugo Nieva]

Someone tell me "If you want to know the quality of tea put it in hot water". I think that in adverse circumstances, the true friends and business associates will appear.

[sbker]

I had come to the same conclusion just the other week. While I know this is not your purpose - it reminds me why I am sometimes bothered by our hyper-connected society. The explosion of available technologies allowing people to connect is now inadvertently creating a generation of people content with large quantities of tenuous relationships.

On the bright side, like you said, it does bring to light your real friendships; so maybe it is a good thing after all?

[John Pearce]

I found this because I'm an old man, new to BLOG and twitter and I love your "Why?" TED video... You are so concise... I aspire to that... I agree with your realism about "friends". In have good ones - close and real... and have been duped into thinking that this internet surfriending is real (in some way)..as a communication of ideas... BUT have had little response to my pouring out... www.johnpearce.org.uk (BLOG and twitter on right hand window) I care about what I write and but shall probably give up soon...and cherish those few closest in physical proximity...

[NJoshi]

How serendipitous. I was just thinking along those lines - what friendship means - this week. I received an email from a dear friend of 30+ years confirming my thoughts. That closeness isn't formed by someone telling you who they are, where they are (literally and figuratively) or what they are. It comes from a slow, silent and sometimes painful and accepting, love and respect in the discovery of that person from all facets and angles, good and bad.

[dshin]

Great post Simon. Always a pleasure reading your blog posts. I just reached out to a friend after reading it. Too long since I've done that so thanks for the reminder.

[Andrew]

A great reconnect that I made last year with my business. Four years of Internet focused business, clients world wide but no 'physical connection'

Yes I was connected but not in a true sense.

Thanks for reminding me that I have done the best thing for myself and my new clients

[Bill Belsey]

Thank you for this thoughtful and timely post. My grade five students and I are currently undertaking a project which is looking at friends and how technology is changing the nature of friendships. I am going to share your post with my students and ask them for their thoughts and feedback. I would like to ask your permission to include a link from our blog this post. We would invite you to visit our project and share your thoughts at http://www.thefutureoffriendship.org. Please also take our online survey while you are there. Thank you.

[Rafstevens]

Wow. This is 'The New Trade'! Already loved your BIG why.
It is all about people connecting to other people by sharing their stories for everyone to repeat hoping to make the world a better place. Join the new trade: www.linkedstories.com

[Peter Paluska]

You make some excellent points, Simon. It is indeed a tremendously valuable process to occasionally stop and reflect on who our true friends are in our life. And, I agree, in most cases (possibly with very rare exceptions) these are not going to be individuals we have met only via social media platforms.
Thank you very much for your blisteringly honest and forthright take on the nature of friendship and how it is challenged in our age of digital overload and attention deficits.

Peter

[JC Duarte]

Great post Simon! Congrats on being a GREAT friend as well!

By coincidence (if you believe in those things) ;-) I liken "being a friend" to Seth Blogs "I've got your back" http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/01/ive-got-your-back.html post..

It's when you feel safe because you know that someone authentically cares & "is there" for you without judgment... even ready to kick your bum if you need & deserve it!

[Jack Price]

It is sometimes a bit heartbreaking to connect with old friends on Facebook. The fond feelings are still there, but time has moved on, and we are no longer quite as relevant to each other as we once were. Not that true friendships are ever lost. True friendships endure because we once shared experiences that had deep emotions attached to them. Those friendships were formed in the moment, and it takes more than a click to renew them. Simon is right: sometimes only a hug will do.

[Pamela Vanderway]

Just want to say thank you for this post! It's one I'll remember for a long long time.

[Conor]

I have been thinking a lot about this question since a conversation with my father over Christmas about whether social media changes the game - and opens up a possibility of building relationships of trust through bits rather than requiring a physical, face-to-face moment in order to construct true friendship. Your story helps put clarity. However, I have at least 2 cases of people that I have never met physically, but have shared deep stuff with them - deep, personal stuff that would not be shared except with a true trusted friend. I still think physical contact accelerates the process, but it may not be irreplaceable. Shared unique experiences are what build my strongest bonds with friends. Having a daughter and being a single father has forced me to ask for more help from friends than ever before in life - and has interestingly led to much deeper connection. A bit rambling, but this is an important post!