I've had a couple of recent realisations about friendship, and for you to understand why these are realisations for me, you need to know this about me: I'm not what most would call a 'good' friend. If you're reading this, you're probably my friend, so you're likely to know it already. You know that I've very rarely initiated our catch-ups, or called, or replied emails quickly, or put in effort when things haven't just worked out naturally. We probably got to know each other as 'friends of convenience' - we just happened to be around each other a lot. If it's no longer convenient for us to be friends but we still are, I think I really owe it all to you. Thank you so much for sticking by me and caring about me, I really am sooooo grateful and I know there's nothing I could ever have done to deserve a friend like you!!! Ally, Maya, Ivan - you three especially. Thank you so much. I really want to be a better friend, I am working on it I promise!! If nothing changes, call me out on it ok!
Anyway, here is the back-story. I was having breakfast with Ally two weeks ago at Tanjong Pagar before we went across the road to visit the Red Dot Museum. When she asked what I've been doing here in Singapore, I told her that I've been spending a lot of time at home with family; I hadn't seen my old friends because I was feeling hesitant to tell them that I'm back in Singapore. She asked why I was hesitant, and I explained that I wasn't so sure whether they would still want to be friends with me. In the past I've had friends who've turned out not to care any more, and it'd hurt. I didn't want to pressure people into seeing me again if they didn't want to, so that's why I wasn't calling them. Her reply rung in my head for quite a while: "Well, then no one's making an effort, isn't it?"
As we walked around the museum that afternoon, we had a few more conversations that made me think. The main ideas were:
- In a friendship / any relationship, it's hard to get both parties pulling exactly 50% of the weight each. One will always give slightly more/less than the other, but it's ideal for these effort levels to alternate somewhere around the halfway mark.
- What happens when one party consistently puts in more effort than the other party? Someone had once asked Ally something to this effect, and she'd replied that even if a friend puts in less effort, this friend could still care more deeply in their own way than they let on.
- What makes someone want to be your friend? I thought about this after again explaining to Ally that I couldn't see why old friends would still want to be my friend, especially after I've faded from their everyday lives and have probably become of little relevance to them. I thought this was a fair explanation, but Ally responded as if I'd said something quite extraordinary. "Where does this come from!" she said. I had no answer, so I started to think about it haha. Why would anyone want to be my friend? How do they benefit in any way?
As I thought about it, my mind started to uncover a faulty assumption that I've held for a long time; it had often been challenged but until that day it had still stood fairly strong. My assumption was that only natural friendships are true friendships in the end. By 'natural', I meant 'requiring little external effort'. In my mind, having to put in a lot of effort into getting to know a person one didn't 'click' with naturally seemed like forcing a friendship. It seemed hollow to me and to be honest, sometimes plain tiring and unpleasant. My assumption was that real friends would simply get along naturally and never run out of stuff to talk about; hence they would barely need to put much effort into maintaining the friendship at all. I'm still really grateful that I do have friends with whom I share such a natural friendship, but let me try and explain how my understanding of friendship was unexpectedly altered that night...
So that night, after the NUS medshow (which was AWESOME), after our steamboat buffet dinner (which was EXPENSIVE), after Ally, Kev and I were comfortably in Kev's attic watching Paris Je 'taime (which was way too artsy fartsy for after 11pm), a thought came to me. It was sparked by a line from one of the many plots in the movie, even though the three of us were half asleep by the time this sentence found my ears. It was something to the effect of: "She enjoyed the beautiful sunset, but felt sad that she had no one to share it with."
Hmmmmmm. To share with. How wonderful, how mysterious the way that the experience of beauty is heightened when shared. And don't we find funny movies / sitcoms so much more hilarious when we watch them with other people? It just isn't quite the same, watching HIMYM by yourself! (Fine, though I still do look like an idiot laughing at the laptop screen all by myself.)
Piecing together my thoughts from the whole day, I started to appreciate that friendships with people I'm not such natural friends with are actually even more special in their own way. Different as we are as people, we can share things with each other. That's basically what it is to be a friend, isn't it? To walk alongside someone and share with them - laughter, pain, happiness, sadness. Random stories and snippets of your life. There are parts of us that only certain friends can bring out in us. Our differences add colour and expand each other's perspectives. We may not always understand each other, and we may not even always agree with each other's values, but we can still appreciate each other. Whether we have everything or nearly nothing in common, the lowest common denominator is this: the willingness to share, even though neither of us deserves the other. The spirit of unmerited giving and receiving draws us together and binds us together as friends. And the friendship strengthens with faithfulness, shown in time.
All these 'realisations' sound so obvious, but to me, it's like those old clichés about friendship have finally been coloured in with actual meaning.
So...thank you all for sharing your life with me!!!!!!
I want to share more, hence the sudden back-to-blogging (and actually giving you my blog address). It's another medium.
Feel very thankful that you have even read this! Haha.
Until my next post on one/more of the aforementioned topics,
I am,
Your friend,
Mel!
P.S.: Is there still anyone you think that you could never be friends with?
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