Renewing Old Friendships

Today, I want to talk about my friend Malaika, wondering if she is still my friend, or ever was. In fact, many friends seem like strangers after getting married. I think the definition of friendship is very simple, actually.

There are so many kinds of friends in life, and just like in all relationships, wounds warp reality until it starts to seem complicated. In truth, if two people like each other, they're friends. 

The degree to which they like each other changes, and their friendship changes with it. It can be as simple as basic human dignity and mutual respect. "If you speak to me, I won't ignore you." Also known as our garden variety friendliness.

But when we say that two people like each other, we don't think of civility, or even friendship. The first thing that comes to mind is romance. That's because the value of deeper friendships has been quietly eroding from our world. The reasons are many, just to name 3:

- Demanding Commitments: We're doing fewer things, and we're doing them for longer. Our interests are becoming more specialized. Who we are, how we define ourselves, and what matters to us are becoming more unique.

- Scattered Focus: While our commitments are becoming more demanding, our minds are ever-expanding. We spend more time on fewer activities (work, scrolling, fitness), but are watching carpentry videos and listening to global news. 

- Economic Insecurity: Working and earning money is becoming the most important thing. This is also making us self-oriented, endlessly hungry, and anxious. Job security is decreasing while standards of living increase. 

Romantic relationships fit right into this culture. It's a specialised commitment with just one partner where you manage everything together while pooling your resources. Deep friendships are seen as luxuries and unworthy of investing in, as they don't seem to offer a clear-cut ROI.

The distinction from more surface-level, shallow friendships is important here. I think of that as civility and decorum. To elaborate, I'll refer to deep friendships as friends, and shallow ones as contacts. 

It's best to be friendly, nice, and agreeable with your contacts because the relationship is transactional. You want to be able to rely on them when you need them and offer them the same in return. 

It's more about trust and reliability than any kind of connection. It's not an unkind agreement; we all need each other, and being practical about that is quite mature. There is a certain generosity about it, but it's still dependent on the ROI. 

If someone becomes more trouble than they're worth, you cut off contact.

Friends, on the other hand, have an inherently disproportionate ROI. You might think about them a lot more than logic dictates. You might not expect anything back from them. You don't want to burden them with problems when you're perfectly fine with doing it to strangers for arbitrary sums of money.

When two people are friends, they like each other for who they are, not for what they can do for them. The company of the other person itself is enough to uplift both parties. Their quality of being enriches each other. 

It's a beautiful kind of connection, one of the very few where both people stand on truly equal footing.

I've ignored my friend Malaika before, refusing to speak with her, because I wanted a romance from her. When it proved impossible, I thought that perhaps there wasn't much else to it.

"Maybe she didn't like me at all and was only being nice to me because of how I treated her." 
"Did I like anything about her in the first place, or was I seeing her through rose-tinted glasses?"
"What do we even have to talk about?"

Of course, I found her cute when I was love-struck. But more than that, I saw her as a kind, generous, wonderful person inside and out. I thought she cared about other people, paid attention to how they were doing, and was sensitive.

Now, this is a tricky thing for women. They find it much easier to care about other people, but they are also more prone to neglecting themselves, often leading to serious physical ailments. So they have to be more conscious about who they focus on and prioritize self-care to avoid burning out.

Not just to defend my friend, but also as a common pattern worth appreciating.

"Perhaps she was only nice to me because I was in her friend circle?"
"Maybe she wouldn't have bothered with me otherwise." 
"Would I want to be her friend if I didn't know her?"

To answer that, I need to first stop seeing attractive women as mates, or as they like to call it, "sex objects." I'm not sure if I ever got over that last part. 

Perhaps some part of me was always holding out hope, even when all possibilities were crushed completely. Nevertheless, I try to think of other things I liked about her, like her sense of wonder and appreciation for nature, passion for good food, and deeply intense emotions. 

I thought of how I despise cowards who hide behind layers of armor, never feeling anything in life, always in control. How rare it was to be so pure, gentle, and hopeful.

Then, I tried to see the opposite: The parts I didn't like. I remember how I dislike unintelligence, ignorance, and oversimplification. How much I value deep intensity over shallow curiosity.

And so, I let us drift apart. I stopped trying to stay in touch. Stopped reaching out. Didn't reply to the occasional memes she sent. Focused on moving on with my life.

She got engaged, married, and became a far more private person. I saw less and less of her, and even when I wished her the best, something felt off. 

Just like anyone else who had touched my life, I thought of her every now and then, wondering how she was, hoping she was well. Fear would grip my heart when I considered the alternative.

With time, I realised that pushing her away was partly my own insecurity and fear of rejection, and partly a sense of doubt about how I really felt about her.

I felt like I couldn't really add any value to her life as a friend. It was one thing when I was physically there; I could hear her out and give her company, but was I really anything more than a hassle if I virtually pestered her?

Did she ever like anything about me in the first place? Did I ever really like who she was as a person?

Now, not to be fatalistic, I'm sure that she's perfectly fine and as happy as she could be. But this is what we do sometimes, isn't it? As time goes on, people change. What we liked about each other at some point might no longer be true.

But historically, nobody ever thought that deeply about who their friends were. Most people have far more things in common than not. If we went to the same school, worked at the same job, or had common interests, that's enough to be friends.

When I consider the kind of world I want to live in, it's not one where people who were once friends hold grudges and cut off ties. One where everyone is always fighting for survival, where families are always spread too thin, and children don't have enough people giving them love and attention.

I want to live in a world where neighbors can trust and talk to each other in times of need, despite their differences. Where every parent and family has dozens of people they can trust and rely on to raise their children to be happy, healthy adults.

It's a world where we all take such good care of ourselves that we can afford to care for others without expecting returns. That's a world where you give people a chance, again and again, until they prove themselves difficult or unworthy without a shadow of a doubt.

That's why I want to give people chance after chance, to give me the honor and privilege of meeting their new versions over and over. 

It's why I rest, recover, get up and try again, even when I've been hurt before. A big part of life is finding value in yourself, discovering treasures that sustain your soul. If I see myself as worthless, I'd have no reason to speak to anyone.

I'd always feel unworthy and incapable of adding joy to someone's life. But once you find that happiness, there's not much else to do than to pass it on to someone else.

That will always be a messy process, but life always finds a way.

If nothing else, we must admit that we are the living. 

Even if people misunderstand, or if your love is not needed, don't think of it as misplaced. If you succeed in life and reach the top of the world, even ambrosia will taste bitter in empty halls.

So, whenever you can, offer whatever you can to whoever you can. They might accept it and curse you, or reject it and hurt you. Just try your best to learn from it, and ask someone else in a better way. 

Other times, you might find someone starving for what you had, and it will all be worth it. They might also take so much that it leaves you completely drained! Don't let that stop you from being good.

Because eventually, every now and then, you will find someone who's not only looking for your gifts but also searching for someone to share theirs with. 

Then, 
Suddenly,
You will see,
Just how good,

This life can be.