Friendship :: 075

Written By Jake Kahana

Hi {Firstname|Friend}

What would you think if I sang out tune?

 

The Experience of Friendship

I don't have time for friends. You probably don't either. I'm not sleeping enough and I should spend more time with my kids. I need more hours for self care and learning and oh can someone please run these errands for me and maybe teach me about AI so I can still have a career in 5 years?

Friends? As a wise woman once said, "Ain't nobody got time for that."

But here's another side. Yes, the world is a mess. The news is upsetting. Our lives are hard. There's too many things we should be doing and learning and taking care of. Buuuuuut...

Friends make a chaotic world better. In the midst of a world gone bananas, what else is there but friendship? If we don't seek out the pleasure and comfort of companionship, we won't survive.

Literally.

Sociology researcher Julianne Hold-Lunstad has shown that people lived longer when they had better friends. The quality of your relationships determines the quality (and length) of your life.

It may be obvious that we need friends, even when we don't feel like we have time for friends. 

This month, I'm thinking about friendship. Not just the people we rarely see but text sometimes. I'm talking about the difference between HAVING friends and EXPERIENCING friendship. Like not just people to DM and send gifs and memes to. But people checking up, checking in, listening, gift giving, and doing things that might otherwise seem inconvenient or inefficient but are generous acts of companionship. Isn't that what we all want anyway?

Who are my friends? Do I need more? Do I have any? Let's make time for friendship. Let's experience it...

The greatest thing you ever can do now
Is trade a smile with someone who's blue now

 
 

But Friendship Is Hard

A large part of friendship and building relationships is no fun. It requires lots of boring time together. It asks that you spend time listening to meandering conversations and taking on the stress and trouble of someone else. It cuts into the time we could be using to sleep or exercise or make money or watch some great piece of content (or, if we're honest, the trashiest brain-rottiest thing we can find). It’s un-optimizable. Can't put it on your resume. Can’t buy it, or hack it, or fast-track it.

And what's happening to many of us, is that the inefficiencies are being replaced by services trying to make our lives more frictionless. The things our friends need us to do– make them soup and deliver it when they're sick, watch their kids, sit and listen to their problems– are "solved" by startups and people we pay. Seamless. Care.com. Therapy. ChatGPT.

We've outsourced the foundation of friendship.

In gaining convenience and efficiency, we've lost one of the fundamental ways to build relationships. Recently, it was labeled as "The Small Favors Economy." The idea that even a decade ago–and definitely in past generations– everyone traded small favors. The proverbial cup of sugar, a ride to the airport, a dress to borrow for a party this weekend. These small favors traded back and forth between friends and neighbors built the trust that friendships are woven from.

It's uncomfortable to ask for a favor. I don't want to ask my neighbor for an egg when we run out.

But when discomfort is met with generosity and ease, the gears of the small favors economy begin clicking together. It's the sound of friendship starting to work.

Yes it's easier to call a Lyft from the airport. Yes, you can probably just overnight deliver that thing from Amazon. I'm sure you can just run to the store and be back in 10 minutes.

But before you do. Stop. Would it be the worst thing to ask for help? Or offer? Building friendship is unpleasant but the paradox is that it is both a draining obligation and an enriching structure to enliven our lives. Small favors add up.

There are a hundred paths
through the world 
that are easier than loving. 
But, who wants easier?”
– Mary Oliver

 
 

On The Origins of Friendship

About 4 billion years ago, there was no life on Earth. Just gasses and rock and elements.

The gasses, in UV light, get reduced until all of these compounds, proteins, and sugars are swimming in this primordial soup. A little static electricity or energy from the sun and suddenly organic material is sparked.

Life begins.

•••

One Friday morning, I was looking forward to a quiet hour to write here. I would drop my kids off, write, and then join a meeting with other preschool parents. But then I ran into one of the parents at dropoff.

"Do you wanna go grab a coffee before the meeting?" she asked.

I'm hesitant because this is supposed to be my alone time. It's quiet. It's the morning when my writing is at its best. "No thanks," I replied.

And about 10 minutes in, as I'm writing about friendship, I realized my mistake. Too late. I had missed my window to make a friend.

We are all just objects swimming in a soup. Bumping into each other and swirling around. I don't know all the steps to turn a stranger into a best friend. But I do know that it starts with a vulnerable question and a yes.

One infusion of energy is all it takes to spark a friendship. Zap. Life begins.

Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
Oh, if you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind

 

Illustration by Abigail Hall

 

How to Make Friends

So what DOES it takes to make a new friend at 40?

Friendship now means something different than it used to. For the first two decades of our lives, our friends would be part of our all day, every day. After college we would live with our friends and see them more than our own family. The period for making BFFs, the way we did in our teens or early 20s, is pretty much over.

Many of us are in what writer Anne Helen Peterson calls "The Friendship Dip." It feels like friendship is just "How has it been 3 years since we talked?" and "Drinks soon..." and "Are you free the last Saturday in July?" Work gets in the way. Kids get in the way. Parents pass away, we move, we break up, and before we can pinpoint it, we're in the dip.

But I want friends. I want the experience of friendship.

There's data that shows that to it takes around 11 interactions within 6 months to cement a foundation for "real" friendship, beyond just acquaintance or neighbor. Researcher Robin Dunbar (I've written about him before) studied over two thousand friends to find that number– about 2,040 minutes. 34 hours.

I'm not seeing my peers all day at school. Or living with them. So to me, that is a crazy amount of time. I often don't feel like we have anything close to that.

Here are three ways I've used to make sure I'm seeing the people I want to see. To create the conditions for friendship.

  1. Proximity

    If we're saying that we barely have time and it's a lot of effort to see our friends, then get closer. Physically. The people we surround ourselves with are the people we're building relationships with anyway. Exposure breeds familiarity. The people in your neighborhood and other parents at drop-off and pickup and the regulars in the coffee shop you like to work at are great starting places. The casual, low-stakes, but regular interactions are the conditions where friendship comes alive.

  2. Make a friend by being a friend

    I messed up by not saying yes to that coffee before my meeting earlier this month. But I reached back out and invited her to an event I was hosting and we're slowly building a friendship. Ask someone out. Get a coffee or go for a walk. Run errands together or host a meal. Similarly, when you feel a spark, say something!

  3. Book the next plans WHILE you're together

    Some of my friends have rolled their eyes at me for this but ensuring there's a next time means that we don't have to worry about drifting or forgetting. We're already set. It also establishes the cadence you're both comfortable with. Are you monthly friends or semi-annual?

I get it. There's no time. It's a lot of effort. But friends help us live longer and more enriched lives.

It's worth thinking about who and where we're investing our time.

Sidenote: here's 101 other ways to make and maintain friendship that inspired this post.


You've got troubles, and I've got 'em, too
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you 
We stick together we can see it through
'Cause you've got a friend in me

 

Comic by Bill Watterson

 

A Friend of a Friend

Last week, Golda told her bestie they're not friends anymore. Harsh, right? Two days later, BFFs again. 

Breaking up with friends is not something we do, not explicitly anyway. I think part of that is because we never really explicitly define the relationship as adults. Are we friends? Community acquaintances? Friends-because-our-kids-are-friends-friends?

Regardless, there are two groups of people we consider in our lives: the people who are "in" and those on the way or already "out." Which begs the question of where is the line? What makes someone a candidate for staying in?

What makes a great friend?

Is it someone who has grown with you over the years? Or someone who gets you now, relates to your life? Remembering a birthday? Being a great gift-giver? Someone to do something with on a weekend? Someone who has a good story to share? Or just an ear when you call? Unconditional acceptance. Or teaching you things. Or wanting to learn.

I can't give you the answers. Those are for you to decide for yourself. But what I'm noticing, looking at Golda's kindergarten drama, is that what makes a good friend changes over time. What I wanted in middle school was different than high school. My college friends share something different with me than my work friends who are so different than my parent friends.

I believe great friends also want a great friend in you. Would YOU want to be friends with you?

Thank you for making time for me today and listen to my crazy long emails. Probably the longest you get and actually read, huh?  That time commitment is something I look for in a friend and I'm grateful for you for that. As always, I'm here to hear your thoughts. Or pass them on to another friend.

Refrigeyalater, friend.

-Jake

Tonight I'll dream while I'm in bed
When silly thoughts go through my head
About the bugs and alphabet
And when I wake tomorrow, I'll bet
That you and I will walk together again
I can tell that we are going to be friends
Yes, I can tell that we are going to be friends

 

Hi friend, it's me again. A few more things.
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The Email Refrigerator is a monthly delivery of essays, poetry, imagery, and thoughts, written and curated by Jake Kahana. Why a refrigerator? Well, it's where we look for snacks, a little freshness, and where we hang the latest, greatest work. And besides, "newsletter" sounds like spam.

 
Jake Kahana http://www.jakekahana.com
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