When I studied psychology in high school, I learned about the concept that the more you share with another person, the closer to you that person tends to feel. This sat quite well with me at first. After all, it makes sense that bonds like friendship and romantic relationships can only be strengthened by the sharing of information. It made intuitive sense to me, yes...until my teacher stated that this closeness is artificial.
How, then, I wondered,
is it possible for anyone to have a real relationship? If there is no such thing as true closeness, then how can anyone have a friendship, a romantic relationship, or any kind of bond, for that matter?
In retrospect, I think my teacher neglected to specify (or perhaps my class notes were not as complete as they should have been) that this closeness is artificial only if the information-sharing is one-sided. That is, it seems more reasonable to me that both parties must share freely and openly with each other in order to cultivate a genuine closeness that could be labeled as a relationship. Whew, I sigh to myself now. Thank goodness; it's possible for real relationships to exist, after all.
Or is it? For what is friendship, really? Can it be defined by such information-sharing, and if so, to what extent?
I have been grappling with such questions for years. As a high school student, I never felt any particular urgency to search for their answers since back then, I had no friends (in school). At best, I had a few acquaintances. I knew plenty of people, but I did not - in fact, I refused to - consider any of them friends. Why? A large part of it was that my high school environment was too much of an academic and social pressure cooker for me to feel like I could make any real friends. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but then, I have never considered a half-baked friendship built on competition worth cultivating. In addition, I always reasoned that we were all going to go our separate ways after graduation anyway, so why bother? Lastly, for particular personal reasons, I had absolutely no intention of preserving any ties with my high school and anyone I associated with it. In a nutshell, that's why I can say I had no friends in high school without fearing that I might sound whiny or pitiful.
Given all of this, it is understandable that when I began at Union last year, I was ready. I nursed a fierce hunger for a fresh start. I craved a new beginning with new faces and, hopefully, new friendships. I was cautious, but open to any potential friends who might present themselves to me as, together, we explored our new lives as college students. And present themselves they did, thank goodness. But this welcome development also meant that with each passing day, each new friend, each flourishing friendship, I only grew more eager to explore my world and my mind so that I might answer the above questions for myself.
How much information-sharing has to happen, and what kind of information has to be shared, so that one can label a relationship a friendship? Is this information-sharing the only major factor which contributes to the creation and development of a friendship? And if all you have in the end is family, why bother with friendship in the first place?
A last thought: in his novel Life of the Beloved, Henri J.M. Nouwen writes of friendship and brokenness as part of a letter to his dear friend:
"...our brokenness reveals something about who we are. Our sufferings and pains...touch us in our uniqueness and our most intimate individuality. The way I am broken tells you something unique about me. The way you are broken tells me something unique about you. That is the reason for my feeling very privileged when you freely share some of your deep pain with me, and that is why it is an expression of my trust in you when I disclose to you something of my vulnerable side" (87).
This relationship between Nouwen and his friend, as described in the book, is exceptionally strong. In light of this, I wonder: do the strongest of friendships originate from two people sharing more of their "sufferings and pains" with each other, or is it more fortifying to share moments of joy? I suspect that the answer is "both", but then I wonder which is more useful in cultivating the strongest possible relationship.
(Any and all thoughts, opinions, stories, experiences, discussions, and so on - about any of these questions - are welcome!)
