Three non-negotiable in friendship

Over the years I have had friends both good and bad. In some ways friendships are the most unnecessary of relationships yet we find ourselves drawn to others and including them in every aspect of our lives. People we work with, study with, or meet along the way become a part of our lives. If the situation is right they move from acquaintances to fair-weather friends and on to close friends and finally become intimate friends. It would be good if these categories were static but they are not. Someone might seem to be the best of friends but things aren't what they seem.

I recall learning that there are three essentials to every relationship. This includes friendships and marriage. The first is time spent. Without spending time together a relationship or friendship will never develop. This may seem obvious but how many friendships fall by the wayside and how many marriages dissolve because they don't spend enough time together? What seems intuitively obvious in theory is often not lived out in practice. Of course this means also that there is a limit to the number of truly intimate friends you can have. There are only 24 hours in a day. No one can add to that. Because of that, to truly have close friends you need to limit the amount of people you spend time with if the friendships you have are going to go deeper.

The second essential to every relationship is communication. In order to know another person there needs to be communication. Think about the frustration of meeting someone and there is awkward silence or you stumble through a conversation. As intriguing as the person may look or as interested you may be in getting to know each other you will not develop a deep friendship unless both sides open up. Which brings me to the point that communication must be mutual and progressive. Both sides need to open up and it must come slowly over time. Have you ever had someone emotionally vomit over you? You know what I mean, you just meet someone and they tell you intimate details about their lives. Far from getting close to that person, you are repulsed because there is too much information. But that aside, for a friendship to grow there must be communication.

One caveat, communication should be both verbal and nonverbal. In our cyberspace age there are many different forms of communication. Some are better than others. Email, text message and web postings are fine but they are distant when it comes to communicating deeply. Better is a handwritten letter where the words and letters are formed by your own hand. Even better is a phone conversation where you can hear each others voice tones and inflections in addition to the words that are said. Best is face to face communication. Then you can watch body language and facial expressions. You can not only hear the person but you can see the person as well.

The final essential element in a friendship is trust. Again this seems obvious and intuitive but how often in reality is it not? Without trust a friendship cannot exist and even a basic relationship won't grow. Think about the ultimate relationship of marriage. Once one person does not trust his or her spouse then everything becomes suspect. Where were you? Why were you late? Why didn't you call? What were you doing? Who was that? The list of questions and accusations goes on and on. But this is the case with every friendship not just marriage relationships. As you build a friendship with another person you begin to trust him. You open your life to that person and share details about yourself. In time the details become more personal and intimate. You talk about life, love and happiness. But you also begin to share your fears and insecurities. In time there is a deepening of the relationship to ever increasing depths. Soon you are fully known and you know the other person fully. This is the deepest of all friendships.

And isn't that what we all want? We want to be fully known and still loved. It is one thing to be loved because people don't really know who I am. They don't know my struggles, sins and insecurities so they love me in spite of who I really am. The real me stays hidden and buried. However, it is something entirely different when we are known, warts and all, and someone still loves us. There is a freedom when this happens. We can be ourselves around the other person and know that, come what may, the person is still going to love us.

But what happens when trust is broken? I have had this happen to me several times over my life. One friend of mine would lie about the girls he was dating. Why is beyond me. However, he could not be honest with himself about what was going on in his life. He would make up stories or just blatantly lie to my face. Soon the depth of friendship ceased. Emotional walls began to be built. Trust faded. Not only did the friendship stop growing but it began to decline and die. In time emotions cooled and the conversation flirted on the surface of issues. Finally, because the lies were so pervasive, the friendship ended.

Trust can be broken several ways. The first and most obvious is through straight out lying. Once the lie or lies are found out the friendship instantly changes. This is unavoidable. No matter what you do things are not the same. Repentance and forgiveness can repair the damage but only time will heal the breach of trust. Less obvious forms of broken trust happen when a person presents himself a certain way and that is not who he really is. In a sense, this is still a form of lying but it is more passive and less malicious. For whatever reason a person begins to wear a mask. They pretend to be a certain way. However, once the mask falls off and the real person is exposed the other one is shocked by that reality. He begins to wonder if the person he was friends with was the real person. In fact, did that person really exist at all? Was he nothing more than a character in a human drama?

In both of these instances trust has to be regain but in the second one it will only come if the mask stays off. If the person replaces one mask with another the friendship will stagnate or become dysfunctional. The relationship will continue but it will be an unreality. There is no true friendship because both people are not being true. Sadly, many people live and breath in this reality.

How can we build and maintain true friendships? First, commit to spend time building up those relationships that you have or seek out people who seem interesting to you. Second, take the time to communicate clearly and deeply over time. Finally, be someone who is trustworthy and honest. If you actively put these into practice you will find your life filled with friends who love and are loved deeply.