Jim’s Blog

I ran across a great chapter in Judith Vorst’s “Necessary Losses” that lets the reader know that friendships are “imperfect connections.”  Here is a quotation: “For we once believed that our friends were our friends only when our love and trust were absolute, when we shared identical tastes and passions and goals, when we felt that we could bare the darkest secrets of our souls with utter impunity, when we willingly would run–no questions asked–to help each other in times of trouble.  We once believed that our friends were our friends only when they fit that mythic model.  But growing up means giving up that view.  For even if we are lucky enough to have one or two or three beloved ‘best friends,’ friendships, we learn, are at best an imperfect connection.”  (p. 187).

How much unnecessary grief do we give ourselves and others for falling short of these mythical standards?  When we let ourselves be disappointed repeatedly by a friend’s not acting as we would wish her to, we are like a gardener who keeps faulting his daffodils for not being tulips.  The gardener misses the unique beauty of the daffodils, and he wastes time that he could spend in finding the tulips he seeks.

In addition, when we feel we have been negligent as a friend, it’s easy to let the guilt cause us to avoid the person toward whom we have been negligent.  And so we create a vicious cycle and a self-fulfilling prophecy: instead of making the most of the yearly phone call we do feel like making, we berate ourselves for not calling monthly and make it all the more likely that we won’t call at all.

I am of course not saying that friendship should be free of expectation or accountability.  But imagine how much better life would be if I could think of a friend and think fondly of the times we have pizza together rather than wishing she would ask me more about my family.