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Friendship has been much thought and talked about since ancient times. But is it possible to be guided by the conclusions that the ancestors made when it comes to sincere affection and sympathy? Let’s break down five myths about friendship. Which ones are still true, and which ones have grown on prejudices that have long been outdated?
These relations are built on mutual sympathy, on common interests and tastes, on a longstanding habit. But not on a contract: we almost never discuss with friends who we are to each other and what we expect in our address. And it is unlikely that we plan a joint future beyond the next trip to the theater.
We have no code of friendship other than folk wisdom, which has consolidated generally accepted ideas about how friends behave, sometimes in an ironic vein («friendship is friendship, but tobacco apart»), sometimes in a romantic way («don’t have a hundred rubles, but have one hundred friends.
But how can you trust her? Gestalt therapist Andrey Yudin helps us verify the authenticity of the five most common myths. In general, he believes that any saying is true in the context in which it appeared, but only distorts reality if the speaker breaks away from the original meaning. And now more…
A friend in need is a friend indeed
Partially true
“Of course, we can agree that when we get into difficult, stressful and even extreme situations together with friends, we, as a rule, discover something new in people that we might never have known about them in everyday life.
But sometimes the “trouble” itself is connected with the same friends or affects their interests and thereby induces them to actions that are unpleasant for us. For example, from the point of view of an alcoholic, friends who refuse to lend him money during a binge look like enemies who leave him at a difficult moment, but their very refusal and even a temporary interruption of communication can be an act of love and care.
And another example when this saying does not work: sometimes, getting into a common misfortune, people do stupid things or even betrayals, which they later sincerely regret. Therefore, in addition to this proverb, it is important to remember another: «Man is weak.» And it remains for us to decide whether to forgive a friend for his weakness.
An old friend is better than two new ones
Partially true
“Common sense tells us that if a friend endures our presence for many years and does not leave us, then he is probably more valuable and reliable than a random fellow traveler with a cultural context that matches ours. However, in practice, this truth works perfectly only for those who are thoroughly stuck in their development.
In fact, if we are busy with self-knowledge, then we are often doomed to completely or almost completely change our circle of friends every few years. It becomes uninteresting with old friends, because after a certain age many people think that it is too late for them to learn something new, to explore the world, they already know everything.
In this case, communication with them gradually ceases to saturate us spiritually and intellectually and turns into a ritual — as sentimental as it is boring.
Tell me who your friend is and I’ll tell you who you are
Wrong
“This saying has always seemed to me the apotheosis of snobbery and consumerism towards people.
When I hear it, I remember a documentary about a Canadian poet (This Beggar’s Description), who suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia, lived on the street, periodically got into the police and shelters and caused great suffering to his family — and at the same time was a friend of the brilliant singer and poet Leonard Cohen, who periodically helped him get out of these situations.
What conclusions can we draw about Leonard Cohen from this friendship? Except that he was a rather deep person, not obsessed with his image of a star. We are friends not only because we are similar. Sometimes human relationships transcend all limits of identity and arise at levels that are completely beyond the control of common sense.
Friends of our friends are our friends
Wrong
“This proverb helped me remember the rule for determining the sign of the product of positive and negative numbers in the third grade, but the common sense inherent in it is limited to this. It is based on the eternal desire to divide the world into white and black, into enemies and friends, and according to simple criteria. In reality, this desire is unfulfilled.
Friendly relations develop not only on the basis of the similarity of people, but also situationally, due to common life experience. And if, for example, there are two people in my life, with each of whom I ate a pood of salt at different periods, this does not mean that, having met in the same company, they will not experience the deepest disgust for each other. Perhaps for reasons that I myself would never have guessed in advance.
There is no female friendship
Wrong
“In 2020, it’s embarrassing to make such exemplary sexist statements. With the same success, one can say that there is no male friendship, as well as friendship between men and women, not to mention gender non-binary people.
Certainly, this is a myth. I believe that each of us is immeasurably larger and more complex than our gender. Therefore, reducing social manifestations to gender roles means not seeing the forest for the trees. I have seen many cases of long-term strong female friendship, including mutual devotion, dedication and cooperation.
It seems to me that this idea is based on another stereotype, that women’s friendships are always doomed to break up against competition, in particular, for men. And this deeper myth, it seems to me, is a manifestation of an extremely narrow worldview and the inability to see in a woman a person whose meaning of existence is much broader than the desire to become cooler than her friends and beat off their boyfriend.
And, of course, the depth and stability of male friendships are often romanticized. There have been many more betrayals in my life by male friends than by female friends.”