Friendship Defined
Part of my July 4th celebration this year was to watch the HBO miniseries, John Adams. The series seems to do a pretty good job of portraying the rocky friendship of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who in a lot of ways were sort of like the odd couple. Jefferson was a Virginian, Adams was a Massachusetts man. Jefferson was not highly religious while Adams was. Jefferson owned slaves, Adams did not. Through it all, however, they managed to admire each other and became close friends.
Sadly, politics got in the way of that friendship. If you can believe HBO’s presentation of events, Adams felt that Jefferson failed to support him properly. Jefferson felt that Adams was too much controlled by Alexander Hamilton, whom Jefferson believed was loathsome. Eventually, both men did and said a lot of things that they regretted. It was only tragedies in Adams’ late life that drew them back together.
In watching these scenes where the men sort of drifted around the fact that they felt let down by each other, I realized that we have the same problems today. We all have our own expectations of people. We all define “friend” differently. I wonder if we would fare better with people if we indicated to them, gently and without judgment, what friendship means to us. We certainly end up cooking boiling pots of resentment when they don’t live up to our expectations or hopes, but how can they be the friend of our dreams if we don’t say, “By the way, I’d like it if you…”
People often tell me that my expectations of people are too high. I’ve been told that my whole life, in fact. That may be true, but what I can say for sure is that I never sit down with a person and say, “You know, it really bummed me out that you never contacted me when you knew I was going through a hard time.” I just let things simmer, and I either drop it off eventually or let it build into a giant snowball that eventually gets me to talk. This is not, I think, the best way to go about things. I have never told anyone, “You know, I think we’re at a point in our friendship where if you see someone attacking me, it’s fair I expect you to come to my defense.” We never have “the talk” like couples do as we are making friends.
Maybe we should.
All of this gets more complicated, of course, because the online world makes friendship harder to define. Are you truly FRIENDS with everyone you’re connected to on Facebook? We use words like “friending” and “unfriending,” but are all of those people in the same category as your friends from high school or college? Do we no longer have hierarchies of close friends, bosom buddies, acquaintances, and work connections? Should we set expectations with all of those people?
John Adams clearly expected that Jefferson, as his friend and VP, would support him no matter what. Jefferson clearly expected that Adams, knowing Jefferson’s hatred of Hamilton, would bow to Jefferson’s judgment regarding the man’s character. Both were let down. Would their vitriol still have built to a crescendo if they had taken the time to explain these things to each other? Is conflict amongst friends truly inevitable? Must all bridges be burned, eventually?
Do you set expectations with your friends? Why or why not?
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanwoodswalker/6990088849/ via Creative Commons
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I just read your Spin Sucks post re; Miracle Max … LOVED IT! Even more since I’m now reading The Princess Bride. BTW — the book is as fun as the movie!
@KateSieghardtAchelpohl Thanks Kate! Good to know!
And these two great friends, founders of the republic died on July 4th the very same day! Margie I think friendship can go unspoken for the most part. The good ones show up without being asked. The ones that show up know our appreciation and hopefully we never take such a precious thing for granted?
@kevjkirkpatrick That’s what we all *want* but does that really happen? I dunno. And even if people know we appreciate them we should still say it, right? 🙂
Margie-
I don’t know that we set so much as hold certain hopes and expectations in our hearts and minds; and perhaps that’s a fine line to walk. We all know what we’d like to see our friends do in certain situations; sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t live up to what we think we’d expect.
Having “the talk” might make things clearer, but not needing to have “the talk” is part of friendship. Friendships grow and mature, change and develop. What may have been important in “the talk” 10, 20, or 30 years ago in high school would certainly be different than having”the talk” now.
What makes a friendship solid is the give and take, the falling in and out of “love” with each other. And when the chips are stacked against us, as in your example with Adams, knowing who will come to our aid and who we can count on when no one else seems to care. Conflict is inevitable. Its what we do with after the conflict that makes or breaks our relationships.
Martina
@Martina McGowan That’s pretty interesting right there, Ms. Martina. Friends don’t have the official “divorce” option like married couples do. You get mad, you might split apart, and then you decide if you want to become friends again. Often, people who make it back to each other get along better because they know they can overcome big fights. I think people are actually too afraid to have it out these days. Your relationship isn’t over if you fight. Unless you let that be the death knell, of course.
@margieclayman Of course you are correct Margie. Our bestes friends push back and come back. 🙂
I could write a book about this one but I’ll spare you and your readers 🙂 I think you should occasionally have the talk with the two or three people that you consider to be your best friends but don’t get too deep or they may think you are a bit whack. I think for the most part your closest friends know your expectations because they see how you live your life and how you treat and interact with them. I don’t think that having the talk with them will detract at all from the friendship and may even take it to the next level.
With those whom you are simply acquaintances I don’t think it really adds value IMHO and may actually weird them out. Better to save the talk until the friendship moves to a deeper level.
@Fierce_living You’re probably right in that it might weird some people out, but then how much stuff do we not do because we think it might be “weird”? People think I’m weird sometimes because I get so mushy about my friends, especially during the holiday season. I don’t really care though. It’s important to me that people know unequivocally that I care. If that comes off as weird, they’ll get over it. Perhaps having “the talk” would be too intense, but some way of setting parameters – I dunno. I think that could save some heartache on down the road, you know?
@margieclayman maybe it’s because I’m a guy or could just be my personality but I prefer action over words so as long as acquaintances are respectful and pleasant that’s all I expect from them.
I don’t demand much from close friends either. As long as they are respectful, there when I need them as I am there when needed I’m good. I think guys friendships, even us gays, are based on hanging out and doing “stuff.” As long as mutually conducive “stuff” happens we are good. In my case anyways.