Why Can’t We Be Friends?

Friendship Connection

I was sitting on some steps eating peanut butter crackers one January morning during my second semester of college, just getting fresh air and clearing my mind before my next class, when another freshman walked up, sat down beside me, and started talking. I knew his name was Jake and had seen him around campus, but we didn’t really know one another.

We probably talked about what we did over Christmas break or our classes that semester since we were in the same major. But then he asked what I was doing that afternoon. When I told him I was looking for a job at a few restaurants, he said he was planning to do the same. So we decided to go together. By the end of the day, we were both hired as servers at a Shoney’s restaurant in west Knoxville.

Somehow, twenty years have passed, and Jake and I still talk about the Shoney’s semester. We're traveling to Mexico together in a few weeks. We’ve been across the US and visited about 15 countries at this point. We’ve hiked and biked, surfed and snorkled, swam and spelunked in so many cool places. We’ve been sick and stranded together and impatient and irritated with one another also. It’s been a ride, for sure. It’s been friendship.

Do you need anybody?

I just need someone to love

Could it be anybody?

I want somebody to love

I get by with a little help from my friends

Gonna try with a little help from my friends

I get high with a little help from my friends

I get by with a little help from my friends

I think the Beatles got it right with this lyric. I think we all want somebody to love, somebody to call a friend. Relationships give meaning to our lives. We were created to relate to God and to one another. But finding meaningful friendship is not always easy. And though humans are more “connected” than ever before, we seem to be really lonely.

According to a 2018 report by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 22 percent of adults in the United States say they often or always feel lonely or socially isolated.

A national 2019 survey led by health insurer Cigna found that 61 percent of Americans report feeling lonely.

The United Kingdom appointed a “minister for loneliness” in 2018.

“Social psychologists define loneliness as the gap between the social connections you would like to have and those you feel you experience” (7).

If so many of us feel alone, why don’t we all just find friends? Seems easy enough, right? But I don’t know that it works that way most of the time. I wasn’t looking for my friend Jake that morning before class. And we made no plans that afternoon to still be hanging out decades later. We just...connected.

What is a friend?

People have been writing about friendship for a very long time. But I’m not sure it's something that can be defined, maybe just described.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.’ - CS Lewis

A friend is someone who “gets” you, who makes you feel like you’re not alone in the world.

He that is thy friend indeed,

He will help thee in thy need:

If thou sorrow, he will weep;

If thou wake, he cannot sleep:

Thus of every grief in heart

He with thee doth bear a part.

These are certain signs to know

Faithful friend from flattering foe. - William Shakespeare

Proverbs 17:17 - A friend loves at all times.

Friends stick around through the good times and bad. They laugh with you and cry with you.

Proverbs 27:6 - The wounds of a friend are trustworthy.

Friends tell you the truth, even when it hurts, because they love you.

“I'm gonna lean up against you, you just lean right back against me. This way, we don't have to sleep with our heads in the mud. You know why we a good partnership, Forrest? 'Cause we be watchin' out for one another...like brothers and stuff. - Bubba to Forrest Gump

A brother is stuck with you. A brother is obligated to be some kind of safety net. That is what family is for. But a friend chooses you. When someone loves you at all times, good and bad, and they don't have to but they choose to, that person is a friend. - Ray Ortlund

Friendship is so many things. It’s enjoyable, dependable, and intentional. But I also believe it’s natural. You can’t force it; you just find it.

Types of Friendships

Not everyone you call a friend is going to have the same kind of relationship with you. Some people meet you for dinner on occasion. Others bring soup and Ginger Ale to your house when you’re sick. And, for several reasons, I think it’s helpful to know who fits into what category.

I like to think of the different friendships in my life as fitting into three concentric circles, each gaining a level of intimacy moving toward the center.

Bishop TD Jakes has written a lot about “The Three Cs of Friendship,” and it’s really helpful stuff. I’m using his terminology here but defining the categories in a slightly different way.

In the outermost circle are your Constituents or acquaintances. These are people who work with you or live in your neighborhood or sit behind you at church. You see them regularly and know mostly surface level information about their lives.

Constituents are great to have in your life, though. They help us find a good handyman or alterations shop. And relationships have to start somewhere. There is potential for these people to move towards the center circles.

The next smallest circle is for Comrades or friends. These are people who go to the movies with you or maybe even on vacation sometimes. You know one another’s birthdays, hobbies, favorite restaurants, and even religious and political views. This can be a pretty large group of people for outgoing personalities. These are people we hang around with a fair bit but are not necessarily people we would open the deep things of our heart to. These are people who tend to come and go. - Sam Allberry

But just because comrades are not in the very center circle doesn’t mean they aren’t important. We do a lot of life with these people, a lot of learning, sharing, loving, and serving one another in this circle that I believe we were created to do.

The innermost concentric circle is for our Confidants or best friends. This is a small group of people. For many, there may only be one or maybe two people here. These are rare connections, loyal and long-term, people who sometimes know us better than we know ourselves. These are 2am friends.

Friendship is when people know all about you but love you anyway. - Unknown

Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. - Ed Cunningham

Constituents

Acquaintances

“How’s your morning?”

Comrades

Friends

“How’s your grandma?”

Confidants

Best Friends

“How’s your heart?”

Why Are We Friends?

So think about the different people in your life. Do they fit into one of these circles or categories? And if so, what factors have influenced the level of depth or closeness in your relationship?

When I think about my own comrades and confidants, it’s hard for me to pinpoint an exact moment we connected. For most, our friendship wasn’t instant; it developed gradually. Something brought us together, and then other things brought us closer together.

The Atlantic published an article by Julie Beck in 2017 called “How Friends Become Closer” that included this perspective from Australian researcher Ryan Hubbard:

The more points of connection you have with someone, the stronger the friendship will be. “We think of friendship as a singular connection, but it’s a structure,” Hubbard says. A friend who you see in only one context—the office, for example—is likely to be a less close friend than someone who you see in many contexts, and connect with over many different things, rather than a single shared interest.

Friendship Buttons

I’ve come to think of the process of becoming friends to be like buttoning a shirt or zipping up a jacket or even climbing a ladder. There are so many potential metaphors, but let’s run with the shirt one for now. When you first meet someone new in your community volleyball league or at your child’s basketball game, you immediately have something in common. You have a subject of conversation, a place to start connecting. You start talking, and it’s as though, in our metaphor, you have started buttoning up your shirt.

As time passes and you see this person more often, you may find yourself connecting even more with this new acquaintance. You may “fasten another button” in your relationship. Or you may find that you really only have one thing in common, and the connection stops there.

So the buttons on the shirt metaphor may be a little cheesy, but it helps me think about how my relationship with some friends grows stronger as we connect in new ways. The more we have in common, the more we are connected. So I’ve identified seven metaphorical buttons that we can fasten on our path of friendship connection.

Shared interests - You’re into that too?

Whenever I meet a new person, I always look for something we have in common. It seems a normal, spontaneous reaction. When I say, “I am from Holland,” the response is often, “Oh, I have been there,” or “I have a friend there” or “oh windmills, tulips, and wooden shoes!” Whatever the reaction, there is always a mutual search for a common link. - Henri Nouwen

This is where many of our friendships begin - when we are doing something we like. We find other football fans at the game, other meatheads at the gym, other music nerds at the record shop. Most of our friends connect with us over some shared interest.

Shared experiences - You’ve been there?

I recently spent a weekend with college friends I haven’t seen in years. We’ve all changed so much and have very different lives than we did twenty years ago, but we still connect over surviving school together. We laughed about one friend falling down the steps in his dorm and breaking his arm. We mocked some of the crazy things we remember faculty members doing and saying. Most of us spent less than four years together there, but that shared experience during such a pivotal and formative time in our lives has bonded us for the long haul.

This happens all the time in our relationships. It could be a shared past experience like my college friends or a support group for breast cancer survivors or a group of Vietnam veterans who meet at a local bar on Thursdays. Or it could be a shared present experience like a group of work friends or a small group from your church. When you are with these people, your conversations are often centered on your commonality - your shared experience.

Shared trajectory - You’re going this way?

I think we try to be around people who are walking in the same direction we are, or at least the direction we want to be going. You could also call this shared identity, shared values, or mutual attraction.

I’m drawn to something specific in my friends. I admire things about them. Some of them are super smart. Others are super creative. Some are incredibly thoughtful, and others are so funny. I have friends who can play almost any instrument they pick up. Others have brilliant minds and really unique perspectives. Some have written books and songs. Some have started and sold their own businesses. And I love learning from them. I love connecting with inspiring people, and I’m not sure we really become friends with people who aren’t moving in a direction we also want to go.

Shared humor - You think that’s funny?

I made a slightly inappropriate comment in a church small group discussion a few years back just because I struggle with filtering my humor sometimes and to get a read on everyone there. I was new to the group and just getting to know the members.

My friend Megan, who I didn’t know at the time, was there and thought to herself, “This guy is a little crazy. I need to get to know him.” Ten years later, my friend group goes on vacation with her family at least twice a year.

This “button” on the friend shirt may seem a little shallow at first, but I’ve come to see it as one of the most important. I definitely think you can be friends with someone who laughs at different things than you. But if you never laugh together, I think it’s going to be a struggle.

Study after study affirms that people want a mate with a sense of humor. But it’s less about you being a jokester than about finding a style of humor that makes you both laugh. - Jeffrey Hall, University of Kansas

Inside jokes indicate a shared understanding of how the world works. These little exchanges reinforce the idea that two (or three or four) of us have created a dynamic which is different from other relationships in our lives.

Banter is bonding. It’s the sense of a relationship (romantic or platonic) being home. It’s a person reflecting back to you, “I get how you see the world because I see it that way, too.” It’s a concurrently wordless and wordfilled way of saying, “I’ve got you.” - Carla Birnburg

Shared maturity - You understand?

Have you ever heard someone say, “My zodiac sign is Cancer, so I never date Aries?” Or perhaps you’ve heard the Myers-Briggs version: “I’m an INTJ, so I never swipe right for ESFJs. They are smothering.” Thinking this way has become pretty common.

But I’ve not found this to be true in my life. My friends are such a variety pack.

My friend Ben has a unique perspective on this. He thinks that what we consider to be personality compatibility is mostly maturity compatibility. In other words, your MB letters or Enneagram number may contribute, but they probably don't matter as much as how much growth you have pursued after learning them.

Shared vulnerability - You’re willing to tell me that?

The transition from acquaintanceship to friendship is typically characterized by an increase in both the breadth and depth of self-disclosure. Reciprocity is key.

Years ago, fresh out of film school, I landed my first job, at a literary agency. I became what I thought was friends with another assistant, who worked, as I did, for an infamously bad-tempered agent. We ate lunch together almost every day. Our camaraderie was fierce, like that of soldiers during wartime. (Shared experience) Then she found a new job working for a publicist down the street. We still met for lunch once a week. In lieu of complaining about our bosses, I told her about my concerns that I wasn't ready to move in with my boyfriend. She listened politely, but she never divulged anything personal about her own life. Eventually our lunches petered out to once a month, before she drifted out of my life for good. I was eager to tell her my problems, but she wasn't eager to tell me hers. The necessary reciprocity was missing, so our acquaintanceship never tipped over into friendship. - Beverley Fehr, author of Friendship Processes (1)

Shared intentionality - You’re still here?

Have you ever tried to become friends with someone who seemed to really enjoy hanging out, but you found that you are always the one planning the meetups? It’s fine at first, but after a while, you start to wonder if you would ever see this potential friend at all if you didn’t initiate.

If you search “one-sided friendships” on Google, you will find pages of articles on the subject.

A one-sided friendship is simply a friendship where one side is making most, if not all, of the effort to be friends. From planning to communicating to giving, there's just one party who is making most of the effort. Not all friendships are going to have an equal amount of communication, but if the communication is extremely slanted towards one person, then it may be a one-sided friendship. - Ashley Brown (6)

There could be so many reasons why someone is not moving toward you in the same way you are towards them. And I think those reasons matter. Maybe they are insecure about initiating. Maybe they don’t have the social bandwidth right now. Or they could just be bad at friendship. Don’t be too clingy or too hasty to bail.

But when it comes to relationships, Marvin Gaye said it so well: It takes two, baby.

Considerations

First, I’m sure there are other “buttons” that could be included in this list. But these seven seem to be the most common connecting factors I’ve found. What I’d like to research now is how many “buttons” most people would say they have fastened with their closest friends. I definitely don’t think you need to share all seven to be close with someone. That is probably rare. But it makes sense that the more you connect, the closer you become.

Second, the word “shared” is an important descriptor for each button. The connection has to be mutual. I may have a strong desire to connect with someone, but if it’s not reciprocated, we’re not connecting. I can’t make you love me if you don’t, right Bonnie?

Finally, there is a big difference between “being a friend” to someone and “becoming friends” with someone. I can explain exactly how to be a good friend, but how to become friends is not that simple. It either happens, or it doesn’t. Again, you can’t force it; you just find it.

Conclusion

At the very end of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo makes an attempt to slip away in a boat by himself to continue his mission to Mordor. But before he can get away, his friend Sam sees the boat and plunges into the river to catch him. Despite Frodo’s urges to the contrary, Sam refuses to allow him to go on alone.

“It is no good trying to escape you,” said Frodo. “But I’m glad, Sam. I cannot tell you how glad. Come along! It is plain that we were meant to go together.”

I think we were “meant to go together” with some people. And God knows who those people are. So keep showing yourself to be friendly (Prov. 18:24). Keep connecting. And I believe you’ll eventually find that you can say with Carole King, “You’ve Got a Friend.“

When you're down and troubled

And you need some lovin' care

And nothin', nothin' is goin' right

Close your eyes and think of me

And soon I will be there

To brighten up even your darkest night

You just call out my name

And you know, wherever I am

I'll come runnin' to see you again

Winter, spring, summer or fall

All you have to do is call

And I'll be there

You've got a friend