Freindship Coda
So, elegantelbow recently began a "meme", intentionally or not. I am glad she did because I greatly enjoyed reading the varied responses she received. What she posted was:
Questions:
1. Is it possible for you (personally) to be friends with someone you don't trust?
2. Do you consider friendship automatically a two-way thing, or is it sometimes only one-way?
3. Do you expect someone's LJ "friends" list to indicate actual friendship?
I think one of the primary problems with questions like this is that these words do not have particularly specific definitions. "Friends", "good friends", "best friends", "close friends", "acquaintances", "buddies", "pals", and "people I hang out with" all mean different things to different people. Heck, they mean different things to me depending on context. If I am talking to a coworker and I am talking about something elegantelbow said recently online, I would definitely refer to her as "my friend, Ele," or just "my friend". But, let's face it, I don't know elegantelbow. We've participated in online conversations, occasionally directly with each other; I read her LJ because she often has interesting things to say; I expect she reads my LJ as our LJ friend relationship appears to be mutual; and so on. But, we don't really know each other at all. And, before anyone goes there, I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that our relationship is purely online. I think you can form close or intimate friendships with people you've never actually met in person. It just so happens that Ms. Elbow and I have not done that to date.
At some point, the looseness of my use of the word "friend" is laziness. Or maybe efficiency. If it doesn't add any useful information to a point about something someone said which made me think, why spend several minutes describing my exact relationship to the person who said the thought-provoking thing?
So, what kinds of friends do I have? Hard to say. I tend to make friends quickly, but not deeply. So, there are an awful lot of people I'd call friends, many of whom a genuinely care about what happens to them and feel empathetically bad when bad things happen to them and all of that, who I could nevertheless never talk to again and not be significantly adversely affected. You know, like, if I got on a colony ship to go check out if there are any cool planets around Alpha Centauri and so I couldn't ICB all the time and didn't see all my coworkers every day? I'd be like, Cool! Space! I bet my friends would dig this if they could see it. Hope things are cool with them. Oh! Look at those moons around Saturn!
A lot of people find this disturbing and see it as a sign that I don't really value their friendship or that I am being somehow dishonest with them when I act like their friend or something. I think it makes perfect sense when viewed from the perspective of my childhood. My dad signed up with the Air Force the year I was born and we moved every 2.5-3 years of my life. When I get to a new place, I make new friends quickly and enjoy their company as much as I can in the time we have together. When they or I are/am moved to the next place, I am happy to have known them and honestly hope they are happy wherever they are, and I eager to meet new people and find out what they're like and what they think and what I can learn and enjoy from them. If I stay in touch with the old people, great! If not, I know they're moving forward in their lives and so am I.
And then there are a couple of people who I call friends who I would feel a whole lot of negative emotions about if we were separated in any significant way. This pretty much has only happened since I became an adult.
So, with all of that in mind:
1. I am often friends with people I don't trust.
2. I think there have been plenty of people I thought of as friends who did not think of me as a friend.
3. As tons of people have already said, LJ friends lists communicate pretty much nothing at all about the actual relationship between the lister and the listee.
Questions:
1. Is it possible for you (personally) to be friends with someone you don't trust?
2. Do you consider friendship automatically a two-way thing, or is it sometimes only one-way?
3. Do you expect someone's LJ "friends" list to indicate actual friendship?
I think one of the primary problems with questions like this is that these words do not have particularly specific definitions. "Friends", "good friends", "best friends", "close friends", "acquaintances", "buddies", "pals", and "people I hang out with" all mean different things to different people. Heck, they mean different things to me depending on context. If I am talking to a coworker and I am talking about something elegantelbow said recently online, I would definitely refer to her as "my friend, Ele," or just "my friend". But, let's face it, I don't know elegantelbow. We've participated in online conversations, occasionally directly with each other; I read her LJ because she often has interesting things to say; I expect she reads my LJ as our LJ friend relationship appears to be mutual; and so on. But, we don't really know each other at all. And, before anyone goes there, I don't think this has anything to do with the fact that our relationship is purely online. I think you can form close or intimate friendships with people you've never actually met in person. It just so happens that Ms. Elbow and I have not done that to date.
At some point, the looseness of my use of the word "friend" is laziness. Or maybe efficiency. If it doesn't add any useful information to a point about something someone said which made me think, why spend several minutes describing my exact relationship to the person who said the thought-provoking thing?
So, what kinds of friends do I have? Hard to say. I tend to make friends quickly, but not deeply. So, there are an awful lot of people I'd call friends, many of whom a genuinely care about what happens to them and feel empathetically bad when bad things happen to them and all of that, who I could nevertheless never talk to again and not be significantly adversely affected. You know, like, if I got on a colony ship to go check out if there are any cool planets around Alpha Centauri and so I couldn't ICB all the time and didn't see all my coworkers every day? I'd be like, Cool! Space! I bet my friends would dig this if they could see it. Hope things are cool with them. Oh! Look at those moons around Saturn!
A lot of people find this disturbing and see it as a sign that I don't really value their friendship or that I am being somehow dishonest with them when I act like their friend or something. I think it makes perfect sense when viewed from the perspective of my childhood. My dad signed up with the Air Force the year I was born and we moved every 2.5-3 years of my life. When I get to a new place, I make new friends quickly and enjoy their company as much as I can in the time we have together. When they or I are/am moved to the next place, I am happy to have known them and honestly hope they are happy wherever they are, and I eager to meet new people and find out what they're like and what they think and what I can learn and enjoy from them. If I stay in touch with the old people, great! If not, I know they're moving forward in their lives and so am I.
And then there are a couple of people who I call friends who I would feel a whole lot of negative emotions about if we were separated in any significant way. This pretty much has only happened since I became an adult.
So, with all of that in mind:
1. I am often friends with people I don't trust.
2. I think there have been plenty of people I thought of as friends who did not think of me as a friend.
3. As tons of people have already said, LJ friends lists communicate pretty much nothing at all about the actual relationship between the lister and the listee.