I have something to reveal about myself that if shared during high school would have made me a “loser”: I don’t have many friends. Actually, using the word “many” isn’t even appropriate. My friends can be counted on one hand of a saw mill worker. On paper I look very socially acceptable. My husband, Peter, is my absolute best friend. We have lots of casual friendships and acquaintances. We have friends that we get together with every few months we really enjoy. I have several historical friendships that go back over 20 years. We catch up over email and Christmas cards. What’s missing in my life is the female version of Peter; women who I am in contact with multiple times a week, who I truly click with, share the same humor and ability for deeper connection. I don’t have anyone to get all Sex in the City with over weekly brunch or a martini. On the surface it seems like time, scheduling and distance are the main culprits of prevention. But it has begun to dawn on me that the reasons I don’t have more deeply connected friends are deeper. Through the journey I’m able to take with my clients and observing culture sociologically, I believe my fear of deep connection is more universal. What I see is a society full of people posting, chatting, and tweeting but not listening, delving or being genuinely curious about the lives of others. While inundated with superficiality, I believe many of us are paralyzed in discovering relationships that are deeper. I am one of those caught in the headlights in my efforts to grow forward in this area.
One aspect that makes finding a new friend so intimidating is that I’ve gotten to a place in life where the friendship must be based on a personal rather than a circumstantial connection. I’ve had school yard friends, a college posse, and close friendships that developed through work. Only a hand full of those friendships maintained any relevance after the chapter ended. These friendships carried me though phases of my life but weren’t able to grow and evolve with me over time. I look back on the friendships that I’ve had and realize that they were friendships of circumstance not deeper connectedness. I no longer work in an office, need people to party with or those to bemoan life’s circumstance. The new friendships I am looking for is with women who enjoy deeper, reciprocal conversation and also have the ability to really laugh. I don’t meet many people that have these deeper capabilities.
What solidified my belief that there is more superficiality than depth in relationships is Facebook. Once I was finally compelled to figure out Facebook, I was amazed at the ability to find every important historical friend since childhood in just two short days. I had so many people to catch up with I even wrote a “Life in a Nutshell” summary to share. It was short, but real. I was shocked to discover that most people weren’t interested. People wanted to know where I live, what I do for a living, what I look like now, who I married and how many children I have. There was about a 10 percent exception rate. After putting my toe in the shallow, cool water, I learned that Facebook is the same superficial fun as bumping into an old friend at the airport. I loved all the birthday wishes from my Facebook friends, but know that sharing that I experienced infertility is inappropriate for the culture.
Not being able to share the fact that I experienced infertility with some of the friends that have been the closest in my life, supports one of the biggest beliefs that holds me back from greater connectedness; I am not interesting. If the people “closest” to me aren’t interested in my infertility, how could they ever be concerned about my day to day issues. Outside Peter and my son, my work is my greatest passion. With all the people I converse with every day, I can think of only two occasions in months where anyone genuinely asked me about work. Most times when people ask the general question, “How’s work?” they really aren’t looking for anything but, “Great.” It’s kind of like asking, “How’s it going?” These questions have turned into statements of greeting rather than true curiosities. Peter and I have been to dinner parties and social gatherings where we’ve left with the realization that neither of us were asked anything about ourselves. People do a lot of talking, but not a lot of inquiring. I don’t take this social dynamic personally. I believe it is a reflection of where we are as a society. But after a lifetime of people’s lack of curiosity in me, it is hard to believe that I have anything to share that is truly interesting.
On the other side of the coin is the knowledge that I am not really interested in most conversations myself. I like to know how people really are in life, and few people either know or feel comfortable sharing. I think due to our society’s priority of image, most of us put out a highly edited version of life to share. The general gist is that our marriages are great, we love our families, our kids are quick developers, and we are all making good money. We work hard to make our lives look as green as our grass. But I find that boring and one dimensional. I’m not really that interested in what people are doing, if I also don’t know how they are feeling. Additionally, I think our culture is so lost in the day to day doing, that many of us don’t really know what’s going around us. Now a days we don’t have much time to read the news or luxuriate in books. Few of us travel to destinations that don’t have a resort. If there isn’t an inward or outward journey going on, conversation can be a bit small. It’s fun talking about American Idol or my neighbor’s son’s soccer games, but not if that is the sole breadth of the conversation on a consistent basis. I went out last week with one of my treasured friends who asked me, “What has your relationship with Peter taught you?” Wow. Now that is a question that starts a real conversation.
Another challenge to being open to closer friendships is that I am no longer allowing myself to wear my therapist hat in personal relationships. We all have different roles we play in life, and many times use them as a buffer in our relationships. I’ve been a therapist since I could talk. It seems like that has been what people have wanted from me. It is how I have found my value. Others roles we play are the class clown, the drama queen, the hero, the victim, the sports nut, and Mr. or Mrs. Fun Loving. We can probably think of our friends and put them into role categories. We can also find our own category. I believe we find cover in them because most of us don’t feel we are inherently loveable. If we drop our role, what is left to offer? Without my therapist hat I feel a bit naked and vulnerable. It has taken conscious intent to set this role aside.
So I have evolved myself into a corner and am now scared by what I am left with. I am no longer looking for friendships of circumstance, those will naturally be in my life. I am looking for a friend who wants to hang with me because she thinks I am fun, fabulous and interesting. I want a friend who isn’t going to be in a chapter or two of my life, but someone who will be along for the rest of the journey. That friendship will be so fun and natural that talking to each other almost daily will be easy. The defense of scheduling will fall by the wayside. She and others will be my soul sisters. As I write, I can feel the necessity of an open heart to attract these women.
I think the comedic issue that arises is that the intimacy level I am looking for makes it feel like I am looking for a “girl-date.” Is that the equivalency for “man-friend” or “man-crush”? Where is Seinfeld when I need him. The last time I had dinner with a woman whom I thought might be capable of a deeper friendship, I felt like I was on a date. Peter and I laughed when I got home about it. We watched the movie I Love You Man last week that spoke to this same dynamic. It is a comedy about a man trying to find a best man for his wedding. Last summer I met a really interesting woman at a party who I talked with for a long time. I had no idea how to get her information without making it feel like I was “asking for her number.” It’s this discomfort with intimacy that makes it hard for most people to believe that Oprah and Gayle are really just friends. We have little experience with intimacy that isn’t connected to romance or sex.
The root of my fear of greater intimacy lies in my childhood and relationship with my parents. This isn’t a means of blaming them, but explaining. I think their fear of intimacy is even greater than mine, which just trickled down through the family tree. Who knows when in time we have known an ease with intimacy. My parents have a close relationship with one another, but never had any intimate friendships when I was a child. They have friendships now that are circumstantially based around retirement, bridge and the cocktail circuit. I know that my mother’s friends don’t really know how or who she is at her core. She doesn’t trust herself or people enough to really let them in. The men my father converses with stick with knowledgeable topics. Beyond their friendships, they also had difficulty extending out to know me. I have little experience with people intimately knowing me. When you haven’t been looked at in life, it is hard to be open to someone seeing. A powerful memory I have is of my father saying goodbye to a new acquaintance. I watched as this man shook and held my father’s hand, and almost energetically demanded my father look him in the eye as sentiments of farewell lingered a bit. I had never seen my father have to make and hold such direct eye contact before. It is in this memory that I know where my fear of being fully open to the love of genuine and deeply connected friendships come from.
The new Sex in the City movie comes out in a few weeks. I’m really looking forward to going. Some of the banter amongst the girls is reminiscent of friendships past. It gives me a good laugh. I was most into the show when I was single and dealing with similar issues. I think my life has evolved in similar time to the characters. Now when I watch Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte, I see fictional friendships that have grown through the stages of life. While I know I want that in my life at some point, I wonder if I am open and ready now. Since I am a believer that our lives are a reflection of where we are spiritually, I must be patient in the reality that I am not fully open yet. If I was, I’d already be having weekly martinis, daily phone banter and deeper sharing. I am grateful for all of the people in my life that run the spectrum of friendship but stop before this more intimate level. They are who I am ready for today; women who look me in the eye, but don’t expect me to hold the gaze too long. Since I have set the intention to be ready to be loved more fully through friendships, I know the stars are aligning to give me the experiences I need to be ready. When the time comes when my heart opens up just enough to draw them in, just as it was with Peter, she/they will appear. Then, instead of a saw mill worker, you’ll be able to count my friendships on the fingers of a hand model.