By David Bozeman
"No one told you life was gonna be this way. Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA..." Theme song from the TV show Friends
And the theme song from Friends (a great show, by the way) never told you that the friendships depicted on the TV screen are about as prevalent in real life as cozy, affordable apartments in New York City.
We, the obsolete, still long for human connection. I don't have a romantic partner, and I haven't closed the door on the possibility. But really, there is something I long for even more, and it remains just as elusive.
That is, someone to eat lunch with, instead of spending lonely mealtimes in a fast-food drive thru. How about somebody who finds my company worthy of an occasional Saturday night? Someone who laughs at my jokes even when they're not funny. Someone who will listen while I blow off steam and not tell me I take things too seriously. I don't want to just know that person, I want to be that person in return.
On TV, we call that person a friend. In real life, I call that person someone you see only on TV. Am I expecting too much? I'm not asking to move in with you. I don't need you to drive me to a doctor's appointment. All I ask is to enjoy your company and to let me share my best with you.
Males, on average, have greater trouble finding and sustaining friendships. Older males, without the camaraderie of sports and other groups, become prisoners of work and solitude. Author Richard Reeves notes this sad situation in 2022's Of Boys and Men (the subject of an upcoming review here). Men will not address, even to themselves, their need for love and connection. It's not that men can't risk their pride to initiate a lasting friendship - it's just not considered manly.
One of the most annoying adages - and we've all heard this - is that to have a friend you have to BE a friend. While not untrue, that's only half right. Those who try too hard to be friends turn themselves into doormats. The truth is, some people lack the relationships they deserve not because they think too little of others but because they think too little of themselves.
I see these people every day. They carry the weight in 80/20 relationships. These unheralded laborers are seldom heard, but, out of a sense of duty, they continue to console, to build up the ungrateful, to listen with rapt attention to self-satisfied windbags babble on about nothing.
I offer no easy, feel-good solutions to finding and keeping friends. I'm just here to share my observations. My first inclination was to blame technology - everyone's best friend is their phone. But life has taught me that people care about you only if it costs them little materially and in the currency of attention.
There are exceptions, and these are the individuals who merit our focus. Giving up on people and withdrawing from life offers us nothing. The world needs not fewer attempts at establishing friendships but more. While even unsympathetic windbags deserve our love and effort, my top priority now is the aforementioned 80% laborers.
I could make the case for all the lonely shut-ins and forgotten souls out there who need friendship, and that will follow. For now, let us celebrate the people we see every day: the polite, the humble, the ones who call or text when they haven't heard from you in a while.
Sadly, the squeaky, annoying wheels get the grease at the expense of the quiet, reliable cogs that keep the machinery pumping. Friendship is not just an accessory for beautiful young TV stars and their cute, New York-y one-liners. Friendship is the glue that binds humanity in a world seemingly coming undone. Plenty of people need your friendship. But the person who needs it the most could well be someone you already know.
