Friends / Friendship....

River

Active member
No, seriously! I'm curious in a broad and general way about how people think about friends and friendship.

What makes for a good friendship?

How long does it take to become truly close friends?

How does non-romantic / sexual friendship compare and contrast with romantic and sexual relationships?

What is this whole "intimacy" thing?

How important is friendship to me/you ... and why?

Ask your own questions here -- or make some up and answer them. This is a broadly open topic on all things having to do with friends / friendship.
 
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One need which I have with friends -- true friends -- is to feel that I'm really being listened to when I'm talking. Naturally, I want to be giving the same kind of respect and attention. But I notice that not all that many folks are good listeners. Instead of really listening, they're planning what they're going to be saying when I'm done talking, or interrupting me before I can express a complete thought, only to share THEIR opinion or perspective on the topic at hand.

Part of this may be that while I'm not myself a dope/pot/splif/420/weed smoker, a lot of folks around me are. Seriously! And the whacky weed takes already challenged attention spans and thrusts them into ever tighter spaces ... which are ripe for tangential meanderings with no apparent thread--however thin--connnecting to the root branch.... If you don't know what I mean, you may want to cut back a little. ;)
 
I hope Redpepper adds her thoughts to this thread. Great topic and I will take some time to give it a proper response :)
 
First off great topic!

Second: In my view every single person on the face of this planet is polyamorous in some form or fashion, whether they'll admit it or not. Those of us who have close friends and chosen family, we're polyamorous. About the only way one wouldn't be is if they are a hermit living way out in the woods and has never met another human being aside from birth or adopted family.

Third: Friendships are important to me. I love it when someone takes time out of a busy day to text me a smile, send me a quick email, call just to see how I'm doing. This doesn't happen very often since i'm extremelly selective when it comes to friends and chosen family.

Intimacy doesn't necessarily have to lead to romance &/or sex. Intimacy can be simply cuddling on the couch watching a movie, a quick hug or a friendly peck on the cheek. To me they are separate entities.

It's supper & cuddle time! WOOT!
 
Most of the people I interact with are thought of more as acquaintances. These are the people I work with and socialize with. There are few people that create an emotional response to when I think of the word "friend". Most are only on my mind when I am physically in their presence. Out of sight, out of mind.

I don't share an ideal of everyone being connected although I do feel a sense that we should look out for each other. I associate polyamorous relationships with sex so I don't think of any of my acquittance's as poly relationships.

I don't require much from my friends; good, light hearted banter and perhaps a more philosophical life discussion when some one wants. I don't need a lot of friends but do like to be in public places with people around me. I am relatively guarded but when I do open up I hold very little back. I don't form deep bonds very often and when I do it's usually with one person even in a platonic sense. Friends are very fluid and mostly surface relationships.

My life is very simple in regards to my friends. I stay out of their business unless they ask for help and expect them to stay out of mine unless I am obviously doing something harmful to myself or to someone else. I do like to help them in many ways (building stuff, etc) but don't want help very often. I like doing things on my own. Perhaps this is because I usually defer control if I think some one knows more than me?

I have always used the word "intimacy" as one reserved for sexual partners but that is a bit blurry now as I have a much deeper connection to Polynerdist than friendship. Brotherly could apply I think.
 
Thanks, Mono- and Breathes-.

When I look back at my personal history of friendships, I realize that I have not been--until more recently--particularly good at forming loving friendship bonds--which differ, of course, from "buddies" with whom I'd do stuff like play pool, go on bicycle rides, go camping or hiking.... You can have such a buddy who is also a close friend, but more often I think I have mostly had buddies.

Part of it may have to do with the pattern established in childhoood as a result of moving around a lot, leaving my friends behind. Sometimes, I'd occasionally get together with an old friend with whom I was especially close. His mother or father would drive him the long distance to visit and stay a night, then away they'd go and I wouldn't see him again for a long while. Those connections grew weaker over time and I wouldn't easily make new friends.

Part of my challenge with friendship probably has to do with my having been a shy, introverted kid with poor self-esteem largely related to some abuse and neglect from my parents. Mother was abusive at times. Dad just wasn't interested in or capable of being close with me in the way I would have liked--most of the time. Healing from all of that took a long time -- to have come as far in healing as I have. But I still tend to have some sorts of challenges about forming close friendship bonds.

I have friends, and they very in the degree of intimacy and tenderness shared and felt. Sometimes friends have moved far away, and I have not kept up contact by phone or email or mail. One person I consider a close friend hardly ever calls or stops by, though I call from time to time and stop by now and then. But when we *are* together, he's quite affectionate and close -- even though we have a tendency to "bump heads" (argue) about this and that. Some of my friends I only see when I happen to find them at a cafe I frequent.

Many years ago, some stuff happened that severely wounded my capacity for trusting. That's been healing, has healed a lot. Maybe there will always be a scar in that place?

I "met" someone in this very forum almost a year ago with whom I've (we've) developed what seems to me a remarkable and very close friendship -- though he lives way over on the other side of the Atlantic, in England. Soon after we "met" in here we began "talking" to each other via gmail chat (live chat) pretty much every day for months, except for a few breaks while he was away at a meditation retreat or some such thing. We still "talk" in Gmail chat a lot -- perhaps averaging two or three times a week. We often go on for hours! or at least an hour. He's planning to fly over here come late summer ... and we're planning to go on a backpacking trip together, and spend lots of time together.

The funny thing is, this guy in England I've never met face-to-face is probably my closest friend! Apart from Kevin, my life-partner with whom I live. It's rather strange to feel and in fact be so close with so many miles of ocean between us. But there is no doubt that we're close, that we love one another, and that we share an intimate bond.
 
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No, seriously! I'm curious in a broad and general way about how people think about friends and friendship.

What makes for a good friendship?

Friendship for me means honesty. Communication. And I find most important of all, the ability for it to be a two way relationship.

I am having difficulties with our ex, claiming to be my very best friend, but she won't open up about things. She expects me to but won't give that back.


How long does it take to become truly close friends?

Close...too variable for me to answer. Good friends, I can usually tell within a couple of meetings if someone can be a friend...or even a potential lover. Both are separate but are tied very closely.

How does non-romantic / sexual friendship compare and contrast with romantic and sexual relationships?

Not enough experience in this. Unfortunately most times I have had a sexual relationship, it turned romantic, even for a short time.

What is this whole "intimacy" thing?

Intimacy for me is hard to define but I know when it is happening. Some of my most recent intimate moments were in the morning waking up with our ex and having her touch my hand, asking about scars, me rubbing her feet, touching the small of her back, smelling her hair.

With my wife it is the same but different, as there really isn't exploration left, we can be intimate simply snuggling on the sofa, holding hands in the chair, touching each others legs.

How important is friendship to me/you ... and why?

If you had asked me 6 months ago, I would have said it isn't. I thought I could live without friendship. However, try going through a period where all of your friends suddenly leave town, you loose a lover to friendship and you are simply left by yourself in a world of acquaintances (my wife was with me, but that relationship is altogether different). Friendship to me in important, very important. That connection that carries you through the tough times that your spouse may not be able to. The alternate to talk to, to spend time with...

I will say this, friendship for me is a single edged sword. I find the word...almost negative coming from a womens mouth I am interested in. This is something I have to work with and understand, but hearing the dreaded words "you are a friend" is basically like seeing a door slam in my face. In my world growing up, when you hear that, any potential relationship beyond friendship is done. While I am friends with lots of women, and love them in their own ways, I am also rarely interested in women. I know I have to get past it and I am trying, but it still stings emotionally.
 
The true friends in my life are the people I can go months without seeing and then get together with as though it were only yesterday.

They're the people I can "just be myself" around without worrying that they won't like me anymore. They're the people whom I love unconditionally, even when they're acting like boneheads...

For me, intimacy is wanting to share my innermost feelings with someone. I don't equate this with sexual intimacy. I'm emotionally intimate with my mom and my husband, but not necessarily with my best friends. I suspect the reason is that I'm independent and stubborn, so I just don't like to "lean" on too many people.
 
The funny thing is, this guy in England I've never met face-to-face is probably my closest friend! Apart from Kevin, my life-partner with whom I live. It's rather strange to feel and in fact be so close with so many miles of ocean between us. But there is no doubt that we're close, that we love one another, and that we share an intimate bond.

Thanks for sharing this River..I bet I know who it is. Another strong influence and well spoken gentleman :)
 
[ PS -- the above article is for whoever wishes to read it. PLEASE do not feel that you must read any stuff like that I post in here. I doubt I'd ever read the whole article, myself. I'd hate to see the topic dry up because folks feel they should have to read any links which they don't wish to.]
 
"Friendship essentially involves a distinctive kind of concern for your friend, a concern which might reasonably be understood as a kind of love. Philosophers from the ancient Greeks on have traditionally distinguished three notions that can properly be called love: agape, eros, and philia."

-- from the first paragraph of the Stanford Encyclopedia article, linked above

Thinking out loud....: While our culture is making more and more room for intimate, loving, but non-sexual friendships between persons of the so-called "opposite" sex, most of us--I'd guess--probably had our initial sense of the concept of friendship as a same sex relation. Now, of course, how much this is so probably depends a good deal on culture, sub-culture, and historical period. When and where I was a kid (and we learn how to be and have friends as kids), childhood friendships are generally between persons of the same sex.

For "heterosexual" (or hetero-amorous) folks, at least some of what is eros doesn't enter into the intimacy of friendship, allowing philia and/or agape to express without worry over at least some kinds of desire. Sometimes, in the case of the exclusively homo-amorous, the situation is flipped and heterosexual friendship is possible without the influence of eros (or, at least, sexual eros).

But bi-amorous folks like myself might have a relatively unique experience of intimate friendship, in that sex (as 'gender') is much less determining of how we might respond to another in intimate friendship. Almost anyone could evoke erotic desire in the biamorous.
Well, at least that possibility isn't determined by sex (as gender).

I almost wish, sometimes, I could know what same-sex intimate friendship was like, from the inside, without the possible involvement of eros (more narrowly defined). Whenever I have had a very close friend, eros has been there with it in some manner, to some degree -- whether wanted or otherwise. What might it be like to, for example, give and receive affectionate touch with NO POSSIBILITY of "turn on"? I surely know what it is like to give and receive such affectionate touch without "turn on," but never without the very possibility of turn on.

No doubt, this has also had some significant role to play in how I have related to/with my heteroamorous friends, and they with me.

An example comes to mind. I went to embrace my hetero- friend, Sean. It just happens that I did so while I was laying in bed (and he standing next to the bed). It freaked him out and he backed away. Yet, had this occurred away from the bed it would not have represented a problem. He'd have freely shared that embrace. Somehow, in that moment, he mistook my philia for eros of the sexual desire sort.

[Not everyone agrees that eros is strictly about sexual desire.]
 
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A couple thoughts on the subject before I hit the sack...

The best way to build friendship is through shared experiences. Conversation, work, adventure, are all things that promote bonding.

and

It is impossible to hate someone and laugh with them. Good thing to remember next time you're on trial for murder and need to get in good with the jury.:D:D

In the words of George Castanza, "That's it for me! Goodnight, everybody!"
 
Friendship

I see friendship as a variable thing. I think there are various levels to it even if we were to drop off the "buddy" thing or the "acquaintance" and not consider them part of the tree.

For me I'll assign a random term to the highest level as "true" friend". Only a label for explanatory purposes.
I think most of us have FEW "true friends" in our lifetime. Some may never have any unfortunately. Because it seems the building blocks of this require a level of experience (which Caveman mentioned), openness and vulnerability, raw honesty and trust that we do not extend to many people.
The better you are at extending yourself in these ways the better your chances of developing that close bond. And whatever risks there are with that.

But if you get there, it seems there is a sometimes unspoken understanding between you, that you will always be there for each other when needed. Stand together through both the celebrations and the crisis. And a level of trust that you will always be totally honest with each other - to the point of brutality. The one person you can always depend on to tell you when you are full of sh%$ and headed down a dark road. A hand extended - but with deep enough respect to honor your choice without nullifying that bond that exists. Willing to pull you from that dark chasm - but not jump over with you.

That level of bonding is special and rare. And maybe it's the highest desirable level of a "relationship" while all the time being that much more difficult to achieve because of the artificial framework so many people place around the term (relationship).

Which is why I frequently advise people to embrace the "friendship" part and not to let that slip away as you try to travel together in "relationship".

GS
 

An example comes to mind. I went to embrace my hetero- friend, Sean. It just happens that I did so while I was laying in bed (and he standing next to the bed). It freaked him out and he backed away. Yet, had this occurred away from the bed it would not have represented a problem. He'd have freely shared that embrace. Somehow, in that moment, he mistook my philia for eros of the sexual desire sort.


Yea River - this type of thing cuts deep to the heart doesn't it.
He didn't "misread" - he hit his own fear point. His homophobia. He would have hit it regardless of the manner you expressed a warm hug of friendship.

I was watching a panel on PBS last night delving into some of the homo awareness shifts. Although it started triggered by the current debate about the abolishment of the "don't ask - don't tell "policy of the military regarding homosexuality, it soon broadened out ( a rep was there from Pew Research) to general views of the american public regarding homosexuality.

The results of polling were very disappointing to me and maybe shocking. In general the research seemed to show that although a majority of people are making significant headway in believing about "rights" issues (discrimination etc) that down deep, the belief systems regarding "morality" and right/wrong of homosexuality have changed little if any.
So although the general public may be willing to stretch and accept you have certain "rights" - at a deeper level homosexuality is still "condemned". So any true "acceptance" appears to be still far away and as one panelist pointed out, without change at that fundamental level, backslides are likely to occur on other fronts.

So sad.

GS
 
I like what everyone has said... to me friendship is built over time and going through shit together. I am not one of those people that says that they are "friends" with someone if I have just been hanging out with them for a while. (Facebook really bugs for this reason!) I need to feel it fully and feel that I love them fully. I love people almost immediately as I find the kernal of good in them... but when I find them to be someone that works for me... that love is for life. I can be beaten and bleeding at their hand and still love and root for the person. Stupid shit I know. It's the Scorpio in me,,,, there is a lot.

I can also be raised far too high up by some (or at least that is what I think... mostly because I am fearless and that to some is admirable) and then come crashing down when I become challenged and emotional and get bitchy. This has happened often and partly why I wait a long time to call someone a friend...(lack of trust) sometimes that doesn't ever work out and I get super hurt (I usually see it coming and have no way to stop it or change it so I don't fall), and sometimes they decide to love me anyway and see me for the human I am. These are the friendships that last for me.

As for the sexual part... well, it's a done deal if I am fucking you; you are in for life. That is why casual sex with people that are not past the "friend" stage just doesn't work for me. Sex is a life long bond for some stupid reason on me... it's fucked with my head endlessly. I am just getting to know that about myself and trying to figure out how to be in a poly world with this kind of wiring. All to come,,, at the awkward stage right now.

(there Mono, I thought of something.... had to drag it out of myself, but as you requested)
 
i've grown to be like that too redpepper. I have very, very few friends and that number, sadly, decreased by two in December.

I am in the process of delving into this to see what, if anything, I can change in order to increase my friendships and improve the ones I do have.

i'm hoping to be able to change things for the better. That is my goal for this year, to do the introspection and self examination so that I can beter myself and my relationships.
 
One thing, I just want to thank you for starting this thread. It jump-started me to reach out to a few of my friends and make some plans to get together. I tend to get wrapped up in my own little world and usually don't initiate plans with people, but I always love hanging out with my friends when it does happen. So kudos and thank you!! :D
 
What makes for a good friendship?
Trust, commitment, honesty, loyalty-in no particular order, I'm writing off the top of my head having NOT put enough thought into this.

How long does it take to become truly close friends?
Hmmm, I'm not sure. I think honestly that for me it's not long, but it's also not OFTEN. When someone is going to be a truly close friend, I know pretty quick, but they are far and few between that I let in that close....

How does non-romantic / sexual friendship compare and contrast with romantic and sexual relationships?
What does contrast mean? I read these type of questions often and I always get confused. :(
I find that for me there is little difference, except that I'm not having sexual relations with the non-romantic ones... I COULD.. somewhere else there was a post about the fact that there are different ways to bond in the spiritual way that can happen during sex.... well I didn't comment on that thread-because this wasn't a new concept for me.
But it pertains to this thread in that I simply find other ways to share that spiritual bond with the "non-romantic" close friends....

What is this whole "intimacy" thing?
Um-for me its knowing that whoever you are internally would be safe with the other person...

How important is friendship to me/you ... and why?
My closest friends are VERY important to me. I believe them to be my soulmates....
http://www.soulevolution.org/twinflames/twinflames.htm
 
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