Some Thoughts on Friendship

My Friendship Experience (Thus Far)

My Mom was a Korean orphan that was adopted into a Midwest family with a passive father and a miserable mom. The running theory is that her father had an affair during the Korean war with one of the locals and decided to adopt a Korean orphan as retribution, or perhaps true love.

Throughout her childhood, surrounded by other desperate orphans or self-righteous Christians that would parade her around as a testament to their holiness after her adoption, my mom learned to never trust anyone. Fortunately, one day she met my father, the most trustworthy man I know, and she doubled down on friendship in a true act of courage.

She would never tell you she is a good friend, but she really is. Especially in the ways that children’s books tend to leave out. Due to an abundance of temporary relationships at the orphanage and surface level connections thereafter, she knew that friendship isn’t worth it unless you put your heart into it.

I was first introduced to the dichotomy of value vs loyalty in some of my first real friendships. My oldest friend, Cody wasn't much to write home about. Our friendship was built on riding bikes, drinking chocolate milk, and renting movies from blockbuster (frequently with the hopes of seeing full frontal nudity). You can say it was cheap, that a true friend would have had deeper and more meaningful ways of connecting, but to me, there was no such thing.

About a year into our friendship, through some mutual friends, we met Colton. Colton was all of the things that Cody was not. He was charismatic, loud, and good with girls in the way that only very few young guys are. He was a varsity athlete, knew how to dress, and set up group hangouts with some of the prettiest girls in our town. I used to call him The King, a title he took to quickly. He was a welcome addition of maturity that we needed in our childhood friendship. Neither of Cody or I were socially capable of thriving in the wild west of adolescence without the help of someone who knew what really mattered. We’d struck gold.

Soon it became the three of us, and we were inseparable. Funny as it sounds, those years will always be some of my favorites.

It wasn’t long until it became clear that there was a power dynamic in our friendships. Colton knew he brought the most value to the group and, because of that, he was our ring leader. What he wanted to do; we did. Because we never established our own identities separate from him, if we were to leave his umbrella of value, we would lose our value. This went on for many years. Cody and I lived as friends of the cool guy, and acted like his pawns when called upon. And to be fair, it wasn’t all his fault. We were using him too.

All of this was eventually resolved when we went our own ways, but it taught me a valuable lesson about value in friendships. Value is tricky and it can’t make people your friends. Not really anyway.

Before I went off to college, I would fantasize about the cool people I would meet there. As cringe worthy as it sounds, I thought about how we would read poetry to each other while cooking, talking about literature and politics and art.

When I got to school there were some cool people around, but I could never get close enough to form lasting bonds. And even when I did catch the interest of these people, I always felt like I could be dropped at any moment for someone cooler. I was never very secure in the value I brought to the table. I have many shameful attempts at friendship that left me feeling confused and inadequate. Even thinking about them now makes me squirm.

Embittered by the lack of valuable people I could get my hands on, I came to believe that the people around me didn’t have anything to offer, weren’t worth my time. I recluded into my studies and found comfort in an ex-girlfriend who was developing some similarly cynical opinions (misery loves company what can I say).

Something nice about loneliness is that it doesn’t care if you are being condescending. After long enough just about everyone gets desperate enough to try again. I had many failures and success during the latter half of college, but none taught me more than my pursuit of friendship with Jon.

Jon and I had had many situations where we were in close proximity, but we never formalized our acquaintanceship. We had worked for the same professor for a semester, enrolled in the same music class, and had a handful of mutual friends. Not only that, but we also had been working two tables away from one another in the basement of the library for an entire semester. We were on tracks that would have paralleled for years, but never crossed.

One day during the new momentum of striking out again I asked him if he would be my water cooler friend. I thought that was a clever way of putting it, but now I understand that I was pleading for him to be my friend. Luckily, he was lonely enough not to notice.

Anyone who knew me during that period of time no doubt heard about my new friend Jon. Most weeks I was either talking about how Jon did something truly admirable or how Jon was the biggest sonofabitch I had ever known.

It was my final semester of college and by some miracle I had gotten Jon to join us for the only night worth going to house parties in Golden. When we set out I had a confidence in my step I still pine for today. I wanted to something to come out in Jon that most people didn't see in him. I could talk of the night in greater detail than my college graduation, but needless to say we did just that.

6 months later he stopped answering my calls.

I still think about the look on Jon's face dancing that night away. I still think about when he told me he wanted to share what he found with the people he loves. Sometimes being limited to working with what you have is better than getting what you want.

What I’ve learned so far

1. Choice, but not the one you think about

In the professional Super Smash Bros. Melee competitive scene, there were 5 dominate contenders known as the 5 Gods. Two of these “Gods” of Smash hail from Sweden and have been known to complain that they don’t have the high level of talent that some of the other American players have. The veritable GOAT of Smash, C9 Mango, located in southern California, the most competitive locale, put it this way, “do you think [my training partner] was good when we first started playing? No. I made him good”.

If there is anything I would tell my pre-college self, it would be if you want cool friends you have to make them. That is the real choice at hand.

"Do I want to make my friends cool or do I want to wish I had cool friends?"

This way of thinking changes how you evaluate the value of friendships. Rather than the immediate gratification that can come from new friends, you look to the future potential of them as a person. You also posture yourself to be part of the journey to that future potential.

This gets past all the “we don’t have much in common”, “they are kind of annoying in these situations” and puts you in the headspace of the long game. Friends don’t come quick and by the time you get to the later stages, you have invested enough time and energy to see the good parts of them that can only be seen in close proximity.

Cool people are overrated. If they have enough friends don’t bother. Most cool people were cool at one point and are riding the hype from back then. Might not always be true, but it is a useful generalization to limit yourself away from getting into a value trading relationship that turns you into a leech.

2. You don’t know what you want, but you can get a better idea of it

A big problem with your evaluation of a potential friend is that you don’t know what you want (out of a friend, out of life, for dinner tonight). Be open to all of it. There are people who you will never vibe with, but that is the minority. People are the most complicated and interesting things in our reality and if you put in enough time to get past formalities, it doesn’t take long until they start showing their weird sides (early into our friendship Jon told me he wanted to get a vasectomy).

Similarly, there is a huge number of people that you will not be able to communicate effectively with. This means you are going to have some rough starts with people, but that is all part of the fun and foundation that true human connection is built on top of.

As long as you are willing to put your neck out, simple as texting, calling, making plans first, any deficiencies will be forgiven (especially if you are starting with someone who doesn’t have a ton of inherent value to start with. They are probably more desperate for your friendship to work out than you are. Another reason to go with fixer-uppers).

3. Building a community

If you are intentional, with time, you will amass a network of people that you never thought you could have. I have always viewed myself as a loner, but in the past couple of years I have had the fortune to connect people in separate parts of my life, enriching everyone's social lives. These networks grow exponentially. If there is a general air about you that says I am welcome to anyone who wants to come along, then your friends will bring their friends too and before long you are the jackass with value you always wished you could be friends with.

Above all of that you also have friends that you have invested in before you knew it would pan out and they know that too. I have deeper interpersonal relationships than my past cynical self could have fantasized about existing.

As always, turns out Mom was right friendship is only worth it if put your heart into it. Just might be the best decision you ever make.

Help for the Helpless

But Josiah, I am a mouth breathing loser with nothing going for me.

So is everyone else cowboy. When I talked about the inherently socially valuable people you have to realize that they are incredibly rare. They only seem more populous because they consume a larger part of the collective social attention. Fundamentally nobody has social value.

This is also true for pretty girls. Only one girl is really seen in a crowd. In the famous words of economist John Nash, “Nobody gets laid by trying to nail the prettiest girl”. Most of what I have learned to do is to stop looking at the same people everyone else is looking at.

A couple tactics to pull from my somewhat sociopathic toolbelt follow:

To some extant this is a numbers game. Put yourself out there. If you ever have the thought that you would like to befriend someone, act on it. Even if it is small, you never know what could turn into a beautiful friendship. I would also recommend joining social groups. Though these groups tend to have a steep social hierarchy, there are plenty of bottom feeders that could use a friend.

When starting a new friendship, let the other person be the primary topic of conversation. If the only thing you have in common with this person is an interest in them, it is enough to carry the first legs of the friendship. If they are reluctant to carry the conversation, then offer up yourself. An even better tactic is to lead with something not very flattering; this lets them know that they are safe to look dumb too. When they do talk and especially about things that are personal, you have to listen actively and follow up on. A good part of the population feels very invisible and listening and responding are a good way of proving to them that you actually see them.

Ignore any negative feelings you have about the interactions. The only feelings I think you should sweat are the last impression you leave on someone before some radio silence. That is the taste they will have in their mouth until they see you next. I encourage everyone to work on being good at exiting social interacts. (I am also a big fan of the right-after-date “I had a great time” text. It silences any worries the other person might have that you think that they are a repulsive loser you never want to see again).

Finally, just know that you are going to take some L’s in the process. Some people won’t like your personality and there is nothing you can do about that. This process will likely make you a more likable person along the way anyway so it is at least a step in the right direction.

TL;DR

I used to think that most friendships weren’t worth it because most people don’t have anything to offer you. This way of thinking led me to be opportunistic in my relationships and lonely when I found my relationships to be paper thin.

Now I know that most friendships weren't worth it because I wasn't willing to put my heart into it. I know that valuable friends aren’t good at making valuable friendships, and that looking for potential in people is much more powerful than looking for validation from them. These new lessons have shown me that relationships are built out of time and intention and being humble enough to ask for connection (and even still mess it up), and might just be the best part of our time here.