When I first moved to Virginia I knew I needed friends. It was easy to find girls like me.
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That’s a rock solid foundation for a friendship: similar interests.
I found a friend, call her Debbie, who loved French class and good tea, talking theology and breaking out of the box in loving Jesus. She cared about organization (have I mentioned that I’m really organized?) and was a true servant.
Seriously, she was always available for me. I cried in her dorm room when I found out some horrible news and I felt comfortable enough to ask for help with my laundry when I was in a pinch.
She was faithful, too. She’d stand up for me and stuck by me when a few other friends badmouthed me.
Sounds like a perfect friend, doesn’t it?
Just when everything seemed to be going peachy, when I would talk to others about how great and stable, faithful and true Debbie was to me, her younger sister came to UVA.
I met and befriended her because I felt a loyally to her, through my friendship to Debbie.
Surprisingly, this angered Debbie. You can hypothesize all you want, you can call it jealousy or possessiveness. You can say I was short-sighted to expect to be friends with both sisters.
Regardless, Debbie confronted and turned on me in a verbal attack I’m glad I’ve mostly forgotten. The words were searing, they took advantage of weaknesses I had revealed and cut me off.
When I prayed and thought and in the end asked for another audience with her, it was as if I was talking to another person. She even mocked me for asking for another chance.
Debbie used our closeness to be cruel. She finished our conversation with warning me away from her sister and set me up for months and months of coldness. Anytime I tried to be warm she cut me off with sarcasm or belittling remarks.
About this time I began analyzing what I thought we had as a friendship.
Was it all my fault?
Could I do something to make things better?
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But years later I see what was wrong. As Virginia Woolf says, “Truth had run through my fingers. Every drop had escaped.”
I didn’t realize the truth of two major things.
First, Debbie was quick to meet any need I had, but she couldn’t share a need of her own. She never let me help her. I can’t even imagine her crying on my shoulder or letting me do her laundry. She was needless. This was the first lie in our friendship. Now, I believe Debbie thought other people would judge her if she showed her needs. She, like all of us, believed everyone was judging her as much as she was judging them. In looking back I can see that any time I let her help me, she ended up feeling superior, stronger, more “together”. There is nothing quite so poisonous to a friendship as taking the moral high road.
Every time.
Debbie could not admit to failing, to being wrong, to needing from me. But, ironically she did need something, she needed me to need her.
Second, Debbie disagreed with the cardinal rule for all my relationships: there is never a good reason to be unkind. Dale taught me that years later, but looking back I can see that it is a principle grounded in the heart of everything good about love. Debbie believed my friendship with her younger sister warranted cruelty. To date she remains one of the most unkind women I’ve been so close to.
Her about-face in how she treated me scared me because I felt as if I was involved with someone who had two personalities. It shocked and sent me on a looping road of what I had done to cause this.
But if there really is never a good reason to be unkind, then I can still ask and expect kindness even if I’ve made a mistake.
Looking back it would be easy to think of the years of being Debbie’s friend as a waste, as time lost with someone I am no longer close to.
But, I feel both sadness and gratitude. Sadness over Debbie and her current friendships (I know she continues to have trouble being close to anyone). Gratitude to God, for working a deeper awareness of love and how to build friendships. Love rejoices in the truth, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. And I didn’t let the truth about Debbie come into my belief in how great she was.
I know I need to find women who really rejoice in the truth . . . about themselves. I need . . .
1- Friends who will let me help them as well as who will help me.
2- Friends who follow their unkindness with humility and apology.
3- Friends who don’t secretly believe they are better than me. Friends who I feel lucky to be close to and who count themselves lucky to hang out with me.
Good friendships will be natural in one way and hard work in another. But the naturalness will grow and the hard work will feel like a highway going somewhere, not a looping track.
Virginia Woolf described that naturalness well at a dinner party where she beautifully writes about the rich yellow flame of good conversation. ”No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”
What poor foundations have you found in your friendships? Will you share with us so we can build stronger friends for the future?
Very good post, Jonalyn. My head is everywhere today so I can’t really think of how I’d want to answer your questions very well but it is getting me thinking. As a military wife I’m constantly having to make new friends and it is draining. I know that, for me, showing myself as very human is a good start to making friends. I have zero problem being imperfect, it just comes so naturally, but I’ve found that it is so foreign to be yourself in a group people don’t “get me” sometimes. It takes me awhile to open up in a new group of women. It is very easy to put up a facade when you aren’t sure you want to be friends with the new group you’ve been forced into b/c you moved to a new state & city…not sure if you’re ready to let it all hang out. We’ve lived in 4 different places in 7 yrs…unfortunately, after a while you almost expect not to have the super deep friendships anymore and hope when you settle down you will. Fortunately I’ve made some great friendships with other fiction writers & that has been very good…but we are far apart. ;-(
Elizabeth,
You bring a great point to light: we cannot be free to be ourselves if we’re new to a group. It take so much time to build the trust to be ourselves, and full of imperfections.
I understand that feeling that most your close friends are far away, geographically. I felt that sadness when Sally moved. But I’ve been impressed and delighted by how our friendship continues to grow even thousands of miles apart.
Emails, Skype, phone calls, visits… these help.
I almost married a Air Force guy and my life would have been similar to yours. Takes courage and perseverance to remain open and hopeful. I think that’s a work of God.
Thank you for your sacrifice for our country.
Elizabeth -
Such a great point you made! Moving is stressful on so many accounts. I used to live in Williamsburg, VA and went to school in Virginia Beach, VA – - close to the Norfolk Naval Base. I got to know so much more about military families and what is required of them and the “at home” spouse. I admire you for what you have been through.
I think it is actually necessary to be cautious in new friendship situations. Natural and necessary. But it can wear on you too! In my multiple moves…I have found that I grow in my flexibility to make friends, but I also have started cherishing my closer friends more…the ones that I talk to all the time regardless of where I live. The far apart is difficult…and some aren’t great at keeping in touch…but others are! I hope that your writer friends bring you some of the friendship satisfaction we all desire.
My encouragements to you, and my hopes that there is a woman there who is ripe and ready for a friendship with the wonderful likes of you!
You make such excellent points here, Jonalyn. I think so many women could relate to this story – in one way or another I think we have all met a “Debbie” in one form or another. I love your description of her as “needless” – something we all fall prey to, thinking that need shows weakness and weakness is a personal and relational “no-no”. This can be so tricky because in a relationship like this the “caring” parts of the relationship seem healthy and loving – and in some parts may be. Then you scratch the surface and….
There is a lot of relational education that goes on between women in friendship. This story is a great example of pain and learning, looking back and moving forward.
Sal,
Thank you. It helps to know our horrible and painful friendship experiences are not unique to us, but rather a community of suffering that so many women experience.
I’m curious how you’ve cultivated the courage to share your needs. Maybe you could share something here and down the road, share more in a post?
“Relational education” love that.
Jonalyn –
Would love to – a great idea! Will put “relational education” in my back pocket and begin putting something together in my wreck-of-an-office (but clean to me!!) mind!!
Lol. Sal, I love ya.
Jonalyn, I loved reading this. You gave that last quote of Woolf’s to me so many years ago now, and it’s still on a post-it on my wall… a very old post-it.
Your take-aways from such a painful relationship are so clear. I’m sorry Debbie didn’t value you enough– or herself, either. And, I’m glad to know you.
I have had relationships that are one-sided… where I need them more than they need me, or vice versa. These haven’t lasted long. I’ll admit that it’s dysfunctional if this is what the relationship is based on. And it’s not fun. Lots of misunderstandings and resentment. And I’ve walked away feeling like I’ll never really know that person. Then the intimacy created and self shared seems so vulnerable, wasted, and icky. I think the inability to receive love, real friendship, and admit need is an inability to forgive oneself. Maybe even a mark of shame, of self-hatred. And for sure an inability to be self-aware and hear hard truths. I know that I become sickly and leaky like a faucet when I close up and refuse to enter into the lives of others by offering my own.
Lots to take away from this–Thanks!
Kelsey-
I love your sickly and leaky faucet description! So true. We don’t do ourselves any favors when we close off who we are to the outside world, including friends who would really like to love us and enjoy us at a deeper level. Jonalyn’s story is a great example of this – and expresses something we try to get across in our posts. There are all kinds of women out there, and therefore, all kinds of friendships. And many will provide hurt and disappointment…and disillusions like you described of never knowing a person we thought we knew.
Thanks for writing in – great thoughts here.
Kelsey,
You leave me with gladness dear one.
Thank you for seeing that Debbie didn’t/doesn’t value herself either.
A good, compassionate point.
I wonder if that’s one of the core lies behind Needlessness. We don’t value our needs to speak them to anyone, sometimes even to ourselves.
Jonalyn, I resonated very much with your story of Debbie as well, seeing pieces of my friendships over the years in the relationship you described.
I’ve learned that a shaky foundation to build friendship upon is the need to impress others. Most often when we do that, we aren’t really being ourselves; if I’m trying to impress someone, I’m saying that who I really am isn’t interesting enough or good enough—otherwise, I’d let my natural attributes speak for themselves, rather than exaggerating them or trying to pick up new ones. I’m reminded of Sally’s post not long ago about the importance of loving ourselves and how that affects the way we love and interact with others.
Another poor foundation I’ve found is convenience: “When no one else is available, I’ll give you a call” or “because I don’t want to be alone, I’ll make a friend, any friend!” I think that most friendships probably begin out of convenience because we have to start somewhere and see where it ends up. But if you don’t build more of a foundation afterwards—if you don’t recognize a deeper need to connect with that person, to understand them, and if you aren’t willing to accept the joys and flaws of that person, then you’ll end up walking all over your convenient friend. I’ve been “walked on” before and realized months or years later that it was because maybe the person didn’t appreciate me specifically or have my best interest in mind. Maybe I was just convenient? And so in that sense, I think it’s really important to cultivate friendships with people who appreciate you and really know who you are, who want to take time with you, and who can get past themselves enough to share with you.
Martha,
Good to hear from you here!
Needing to impress others, yes, that’s a good example. I found myself slipping into that on first dates quite a lot.
Interesting how making new friends has some similarities to first dates.
I do think that knowing ourselves and thereby having something solid to say, THIS is what I am, this is what I want to love is a life-long discipline, for me. I’m glad Sally highlighted it, I think we need to more.
Yesterday I bypassed looking good and taking Finn to the bathroom in time (yes we’re potty training) so he peed all over the leather couch, BUT it was for the greater point of having a once in a lifetime spiritual conversation. I still had to work for the rest of the day on not kicking myself for not doing EVERYthing perfectly.
It took a lot of energy to love myself and be kind to myself. So that I was more exhausted from that than from potty-training.
Convenient friends… this makes me reevaluate if I was just a convenient friend for Debbie. A good thought to ponder. C.S. Lewis speaks about this in The Four Loves, too, how people who want a friend more than they want to share themselves will always find themselves friendless. Because friendship is always about something, even if just collecting bottle caps.
Martha-
You bring up some great points!! Not being yourself…that can get old in a friendship and begin to make things seem taxing. And yes! about convenience. It sometimes feels weird to be alone…so we end up offering time to someone we normally wouldn’t spend time with – and they are easy to take advantage of, like you described.
Most of all, you use a great word when you say “cultivate”. I always think of growing a garden, and what it takes to get to a great product. Friendships are the same way…and there are friends you can pick right off the shelf like we do flowers from Lowe’s, but there are others that we till the ground for and grow ourselves.
Thanks for a great comment!