Monday, June 25, 2012

Friendship vs Relationship: The Smackdown


Let's be friends!

If only it were that easy.

I know that everyone talks about how hard it is to make friends, particularly in real life, and that's because it is.  It's spectacularly hard.  I have three people I'm cruising right now to be friends with, and a fourth as a possibility, but who knows if any of them will work out?

I mean, how much easier was it to make friends when you were in school - "You like grape jelly? I like grape jelly! Let's be friends!" - or when you were in college - "You like free beer? I like free beer! Let's be friends!" - or when . . . yeah, I think that's pretty much when you had your options for making friends.  I mean, if you have kids, you can make friends with the moms of your kid's friends, and if you work outside the home, you can make friends with your work buddies, but I've always found that pretty hit or miss. 

My starting a friendship relationship moves are in various stages right now with my four potential candidates, and I've got to remind myself not to just spastically start inviting someone to my house to watch Gilmore Girls or 30 Rock [except you're all invited, of course, because we're beyond that awkward beginning stage and into the real relationship where I can ask you if I should dye my hair redder and you will TOTALLY TELL ME THE HONEST ANSWER.  Also, we can talk about nail polish and bitch about our partners. FUN!] because that kind of shit? Will not make me a friend and will be discussed like a potential date's penis size - meaning not in a good way, but with horrific accuracy. 

It's hard to put yourself out there and ask someone to be your friend - to be in a real relationship with you and to be a part of your life.  Sure, you can bitch about sitting around with nothing to do, but it's a long leap from that kind of bitching to asking someone if they want to go do something with you.  Because if you do, and they don't? GAH. THE HORROR.  Then you have to pretend that it's ALL FINE, YOU WERE JUST ASKING, YOU KNOW? NO BIG!

It's worse than having a romantic relationship, because with a romantic relationship, if you tell someone you want to be with them, they either want to be with you or they don't [meaning they want to have sex with you or they don't - let's not kid ourselves, a great personality and a sterling credit record are nothing to be sneezed at, but you know and I know that if there's no interest in seeing that other person up close and naked, that relationship is not going far.  And let's also not kid ourselves, we know how far it's going to go from about 3.2 seconds in.]. 

In a friendship relationship, it's far trickier.  I mean, if your potential friend looks like Salma Hayek, sure you'd want to see her naked.  Who wouldn't?  But in general, this relationship is more about the personality, and THAT is a harder road to navigate.  Because you can totally make out with someone for about 20 minutes and then decide it's not going to work, and you have a valid excuse ["I'm sorry, it's not you, it's me" or the ever popular "I'm sorry, I think I just got my period"], but if you hang out with someone for about 20 minutes - once you're able to finagle your way in - you still aren't sure if you've got something to build a relationship on.  You invest a lot more time in making a friendship relationship than you do a romantic relationship. 

I'd like to think that cool, fun and awesome people like us would easily make and maintain these kinds of relationships, but I think the gods mock us.  I think they know how important a good, solid friendship relationship can be, and so they make it harder to get and maintain them, so that we know that we should be thankful and cherish them.

Jerks.

25 comments:

  1. Oh yes. I'm smack dab in the middle of going on blind dates to find new friends & it is so awkward and somewhat pathetic. If they reject me, it stings so much more than if it were a romantic date. Good luck!

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  2. You know, you've really captured an interesting idea here. I read once that there's an old saying, "Friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for life." The older I get, the truer I think that is.

    Most of my friends come up through work or mutual friends or whatever. When one of us moves on, the friendship fades. I had friends at my last job that I thought would be my friends forever, but when I moved on, despite everyone's best efforts, it just wasn't the same.

    On the plus side, I have friends--mostly from high school, oddly enough--that I'm probably closer to now than I was then. Viva la Facebook ;-)

    I have become a bit jaded about making new friends at this point in my life, for all the reasons you mentioned, and I appreciate your articulating something that has been on my mind for quite awhile :-)

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  3. You are so absolutely right about this. I can tell that you view friendship in much the way that I do. It's easy to say, "I'm friends with so-and-so" just for the sake of simplicity. But when I break down the true semantics of the word "friend," that's a word that I truly reserve for a select few. And my goodness -- I have only a few TRUE BLUE like GLUE friends. I don't have anyone who lives RIGHT HERE that's in that category; all my REAL friends have moved away. SO SAD. At least there's the computer and phones to keep us in contact, but I don't have a single person who lives here whose house I can walk into unannounced and go straight to the fridge to raid it.

    LOSER.

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  4. Sometimes I think we just over use the word 'friend' and that puts more pressure on everything. Although, if you do what I do, and use 'neighbor' and ' acquaintance' and 'colleague' instead, people look at you funny. Great post!

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  5. It IS hard to make friends as an adult. I've made new friends through the activities that I do, like dancing and writing for a newspaper. If I'm not meeting someone directly, I'm meeting them through a friend. I have a friend who seems to know all the young professionals in this city; he sometimes invites me to these seafood boils and house parties that these young professionals throw and I make at least one new friend each time. You clearly need an exceedingly gregarious and well-connected friend in your life! If only I could share him with you.

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  6. I've had the same group of friends for over 18 years. It's extremely rare for me to add a new person/friend, especially to invite them into the well-established friend circle. I have people who will forever and ever amen remain on the cusp of friendship (which is just another way of saying I'ma have lunch with you and talk to you about generic bullshit but we aren't really friends, we won't talk outside of work, and goodglorygoddamn don't tell me anything about your sex life because I. Don't. Care.). It's hard for me to get past the don't care period. I do wish I had more friends at work: people to eat with, talk to, badmouth the man, give me lunch money loans when I switch purses midweek and forget to transfer my debit card from that secret compartment that I say I'm going to stop using because I always forget it's there but I keep on using it because there's something wrong with me. I'ma just stop using the word friend. These dem chicks I work with.

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  7. Yeah. Like the cool English chick I used to talk to while Eve was swimming. I gave her my number. She never called me - bitch. And the people I worked with at Chapters. I had to pretend I was good with binge drinking and adultery if I wanted to fit in there - and I'm really not that down with adultery. We were friends with a circle of people from my husband's work, though, when we all had babies at once, and even though none of them work there any more we're all still very close. I guess the nuclear bomb of child-having-ness tends to cement those relationships.

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  8. I'll be your friend...

    (p.s. I like jelly AND beer, just not together)

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  9. "I've got to remind myself not to just spastically start inviting someone to my house to watch Gilmore Girls...."---I'm glad we're past that because I'm totally down with some Gilmore Girls watching.

    Why is hard sometimes to find new adult friends? I need a kid, so it'll be easier for me.

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  10. I agree it is, as you say, spectacularly hard. So many things have to line up to make it work. Also the thing that sucks in Brooklyn is that the friends you do manage to make often relocate eventually. And that sucks big time. All that time and effort we put in and you are heading to the suburbs? Grrr....

    I also saw, just last night, a really funny Louis CK bit about how hard it is to make friends...or to admit that you'd like to pursue a friendship with someone. He makes me laugh so hard.

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  11. Sorry I'm new here, but this is one of the best blog posts I have ever read because it hits so close to home!

    With people being so busy, it can be really tough to make time for platonic relationships, plus people do tend to 'grow out of each other' sometimes.

    It hurts when people stop all contact, but I like to think that those who are meant to be friends with me will make some effort and appreciate my efforts to keep in touch as well.:)

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  12. Oh that funny, breezy, off the cuff, oh so hard to fake tone of voice of a cool person. Who WOULDN'T want to be friends with you!

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  13. Loved this, you're absolutely right. My husband and I often lament that we don't have "couple friends." And how the hell do you find couple friends without coming off like swingers?? Hey, guys we like YOU. Want to hang out? Uh... no...

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  14. I'll be over at 5pm with a case of wine and my complete boxed set of Gilmore Girls DVDs. xo

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  15. Excellent goods from you, man. I’ve remember your stuff previous to and you are just extremely wonderful. I actually like what you have acquired here, certainly like what you’re stating and the way by which you say it. You make it enjoyable and you continue to take care of to keep it sensible. I can not wait to learn far more from you. This is really a terrific web site.

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  16. Yeah. What 'wie bekome ich eine freundin' said.

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  17. And also:

    "My starting a friendship relationship moves are in various stages right now with my four potential candidates"

    Pshaw, woman, just go ahead and ask me.

    xo

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  18. I've said it once, and I'll say it again... If we were neighbours, we would definitely be friends. I would friend you so hard. I would friend the shit out of you.

    I don't mean that to sound anywhere near as sexual as it does. I'm sorry.

    But yes, we would hang out and chat and watch films and wear slankets and you would take me to Target (because I've never been there).

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  19. I'm reminded of the "you can't turn a 'no' into a 'yes'" line with romantic relationships. As soon as you realize you have no desire to sleep with someone . . . it's done. Hopefully, you never come to this realization about your partner after you've already married because, well, *awkward*

    I've heard that there are really only three great opportunities to make friends. First is in school, because that's, basically, why they have school. Next is in college, because everybody is awkward and is in the same boat. But then, it's when you have kids -- and, again, everybody is in the same boat (except that they're not -- if you're dealing with your first kid and you run into a group of parents who all have 2-3-4 kids before the one your kid is making friends with, well, they already have tons of parent friends -- maybe . . . or maybe they're bitches). I dislike the work place for friends because, let's face it, I spend my time at work thinking of the times that I won't be at work -- the very last thing I want is to have "work friends" reminding me of work when I'm not at work.

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  20. Duuuuuuude, I am so with you. I'm not sure when it became hard to make real friends, 27? 28? I have no kids, so that option is a no-go, and I work from home.

    My circle of friends is tiny, and have been in my world for a number of years. Huh, I hadn't really thought about it, but I don't think I've made a new friend in about 5 years.

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  21. Oh God, I hope I'm not one of those potential friends you're auditioning. I suck at auditions. I'm assuming we're already friends since we've already gone to bloggity third base. And OMG, Jo said "slankets."

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  22. My sister & I talk about this ALL THE FREAKING TIME --- neither of us has any close friends close by. It's so much more difficult to build & maintain friendships when there isn't that common theme of school or a job to provide that portion of the work for you. Except for my sis & my hubz, all my besties are online, & most of those are folks I've never even met. *sigh*

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  23. Debated on commenting because I cannot fucking believe that you're interviewing friends. I KNEW it- you're a serial friender and if I weren't so lazy and broke I'd be stalking your ass in revenge. But anyway, in the real world it is a pain in the ass. I met a woman and thought we could be friends but she's quite limited in how much interaction she can handle and I'm an introvert! It's to the point that I'm not sending another email suggesting coffee because she's not Salma Hayak.

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  24. I was going to add something snarky here but you know what? Not necessary. You've summed up the whole conundrum quite nicely here. I've managed to make some swell friends in recent years, thanks to a second go-round at parenting and pursuing new interests. It's all just dandy right now. But sometimes late at night I wonder, in horror, what happens when the kids get too big for play dates? when I stop liking to ride my bike through hell's half acre? Will we all still be pals? Will I have to start over?

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  25. What about when you think that you have potentially found a new friend and then they confide to you that the only way their husband will have sex with them is if they dress up in a french maid outfit and are not allowed to talk? It's hard to let that person down by refusing the friendship, and yet, who wants to envision mandatory silent cleaning lady 'relations', when you just want to eat potato chips and talk about the crazy RHONJ women?

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Every time you comment, I get a lady boner.