Levels of Friendship

Everyone wants friends. Even the grumpiest of individuals wants at least one or two.  We are born with the need desire; it's innate. God created us for a relationship with Him.  He has a desire to love and be loved, and being created in His image, so do we.

When children show up at a playground they look for other little people they know, and if they don't know someone they will try to join a group or another child to play.  The sad children are usually not the ones spending time with others; they are typically the ones that are off by themselves. In fact, when my children come inside the house with sad looks on their faces and I ask them what is wrong they will say, "There is no one to play with!"

If we are built with a desire for friendship, and as children we automatically reached out for friendship, why is it that a lot of people feel lonely or are not reaching out to others?  The answer is multifaceted, but it can be summed up in one word, fear.

At some point we learn to fear others.  Maybe you were teased or excluded from a group you tried to hang out with.  Others may have been abused and learned that people couldn't be trusted. Abused children often decide that being lonely is a whole lot better than being abused, and they carry that behavioral pattern into adulthood.

In my experience as a counselor I have found that most everyone has some level of hesitancy about reaching out to others. Making friends 101 wasn't a class they taught in kindergarten, and because we are left with a trial and error method we can wind up assuming things about friendships that just aren't true.

Lately I have been working with quite a few teenagers and adults that have had misconceptions that led to dysfunctional behavior. Some of these individuals were loners, afraid to reach out because they didn't want to be rejected. Others were considered very popular and yet they were afraid to limit the number of deep friendships and found themselves exhausted, feeling used and lonely.

I want to share some simple truths about friendship that helped them through their dilemmas.

There are levels of friendships. Think of the levels as a bulls eye with the word "best" in the center, "good" in the middle ring, "acquaintance" on the outer ring, and the word "memories" outside the entire bulls eye.

Most people understand that there are levels of friendship, but what don't realize is that it is natural for people to flow in and out of those rings.  There are several reasons this phenomenon occurs; one is location.

Most friendships are seasonal. For example, you may hang out with coworkers for lunch or after work twice a week. You enjoy these times and you share a lot of your problems, interests, and joys; you may even celebrate each other's birthdays.

The relationship feels like a close friendship, but the day you stop working there you suddenly realize you don’t talk with them as much.  You might Facebook them a birthday wish, but you don't make the party, Why?  Because you aren't worthy?  No!  It's simply because you aren’t around them as much as you used to be.

Seasons can include: work, marriage, churches, the neighborhood or state you live in, life choices, death, and other life changes.

If you don't realize that friendships will flow through the different levels of friendship during the different seasons in life you can wind up feeling like there is something is wrong with you.  You might feel rejected or you might drop a friendship altogether because you expected it to always remain in the good friend level and it moved to acquaintance.

An unrealistic expectation of how long your friendships can last can lead to hurt feelings, gossip, passive aggressive behaviors, low self esteem, and even depression.

Remember, when the season of life changes friendships can move into a deeper level of friendship as well.  One of my best friends today was someone I met when i was ten years old.  There was a year in high school we didn’t hang out because of a season he was going through, and there were several years in our twenties that our friendship was in the good level instead of the best level.

As we got older we realized how rare our friendship was and we cultivated it more carefully.  Although we live on different ends of the east coast he is still a best friend.

Friendships take a lot of work.  But it's helpful to understand how seasons in life will have an effect on the level of those friendships, and that it is ok for your friendships to flow through those different levels. 

                                                           

Johnny Walker is a Christian Counselor and the founder of Family Works Counseling