In the safe harbor of each other's company they could afford to abandon the ways of other people and concentrate on their own perceptions of things.
--Toni Morrison
Friendship lacks exact parameters. Like love, it can ignite right away or boomerang into you, someone you first tried to escape coming back to you as a crucial pal. Like the hoods--sisterhood, brotherhood--friendship strengthens under duress and over time, yet no tribe of friends counts for much if you automatically belong to their number. While common interest and shared temperament help, these do not determine who we become friends with, or how.
“Neighbor" defines proximity first, behavior, second.
“Lovers” occupy their own country, a private realm behind the borders of which no one can ever exactly see.
“Friend” is behavior first yet made true, as often as not, by what happens in public.
As with “like,” discussed yesterday, the internet befouls our definition of “friend.”
How did we come to believe mutual inter-relatedness and affection might be consummated with a click? How we make our friends and who they are is as distinct and leathered as our signature or our smile.
Algorithm? Friendship defies it. Or should. Like all that is precious in the human world, this too must include texture, shall not be binary.
To be sure, humans have always been spectacularly good at forgetting the fibers that hold us together, at dismissing the ropes that pull us towards one another or bind us up as a community.
And now? After twenty years of “liking” and “friending? and putting the silicon over our relationships? During a pandemic when the organic and serendipitous meetings friendship and community grow out of are few? What should we do?
Be honest, especially on Zoom. Especially there.
Abandond the ways of other people so as to provide safe harbor for those you would befriend.
And help them concentrate on their own perception of things.
Really appreciate these observations, Ted. Thank you. Since social media is (likely) here to stay, reminding us to be honest with each other, even on the phone, on the video call, alone is welcome. But even Kindness and Honesty are not always clear, not as simple as we wish they were; as they seem to be in the clear bell tones they strike in our hearts and minds when we say the words. This is not to say they shouldn’t be pursued; just to admit that they’re as likely to keep company with Constraint and Betrayal as they are with Honor and Courage.