Friendships and Freedom

There are potentially as many kinds of friendships as there are combinations of individuals in the world. Some friendships are based around common hobbies, while others are based around a shared history. There are some which are maintained out of convenience and others which fill us with a sense of deep connection.

We would like to think that our friendships allow for our own personal freedom, but for many people this is simply not the case. We are all growing and changing with every passing day, at least we have a natural tendency to do so. But not all friendships encourage such growth, many go so far as to actively hinder such growth.

bff

When we become close with someone, we develop a mode of interacting with them. Sometimes this mode of interacting is not entirely representative of who we are, but based more around the norms of our society. We have ideas about friendship instilled in us from our parents and from television. Not all of us naturally fit these patterns. Our relationships are further complicated when we’ve been hurt and start to distrust in others, or when we have any semblance of a victim mentality, and this is someone that almost everyone goes through at some point in their lives. Things that were once simple may feel more and more complicated as we get older.

How many of us have friends who do not appreciate the changes we make in our lives, or feel betrayed when we change in a way that is difficult for them to understand or that puts our own happiness before their expectations. Many friends are more concerned with losing us than with our happiness. Some are even more concerned with losing us than with their own happiness. When we change too much, it can threaten that feeling that this person will always be there.

I’ve experience this first and second hand through many artist friends. Many of my friends found themselves unhappy in their jobs and lifestyles and sought to pursue their artistic careers rather late. They’re old friends all tell them they are crazy, one was even threatened by a friend who was so offended by his friends decision to change his lifestyle that he actively sought to get in his friends way, “This is for your own good!” he would say.

When we tell some friends about our decisions to leave our current city and go far away, get married and have kids, find a new hobby, or change work, their response sometimes comes from their own self interest. If it doesn’t affect them, they may congratulate us, but if it affects them in any way, they’re often less than please.

This is especially when we find some other friends who we have more in common with. When we find friends whose passions align with ours, many of our high school or hometown friends will be less than pleased. They may tease us, ignore us, or assume our friendships with them aren’t as strong as they thought.

I play music and I like to spend time with people who I can collaborate artistically with. My old drinking buddy had a hard time getting used to it when I started turning down his bi-weekly invitations to go get a drink. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him, I just didn’t want to sit around drinking and complaining when I could jam or watch people paint.

A change in or beliefs or political stance can also cause some friends to lash out or distance themselves from us. Sometimes a distancing is fair and for the better as we really don’t see eye to eye in a way we once did, but sometimes it’s out of resentment rather than out of a true divide in the relationship. I have some Christian friends who were basically exiled from their Christian group of friends when they started making friends with non-Christians, despite remaining Christian themselves. I had an atheist friend who was the same. If a friendship is based upon similar faith or beliefs and then those beliefs change, it makes sense to drift apart, but if it’s based upon other elements, this seems unnecessary to me.

This is a deep topic and there is way more than I could say in a single post. I’d like to go more into the issue of dependency and flexibility in friendships in future posts.