Friendship isn’t what you think it is

It’s more and better.

When the internet security question pops up (as it inevitably does) - “Who was your best childhood friend?” – who do you say?

Mine, and now you know a secret about me, is Melissa. At ages 8 and 9, she and I were Americans living in London, the only two in our class at the British school we attended. The bond was fast, furious, and enduring. We walked hand-in-hand on the London streets in our uniforms, Madeline style, during our daily school “walk” period. We ogled the wares at the bakery we passed, making plans of the cake shop we would one day open. We had sleepovers and played board games and studied spelling words and complained about our pesky siblings.

Most of my best memories of our three years in London include Melissa. And after both our families moved back to the states, we often visited one another, for years. This was way before internet and phone, so landline phone calls and letters and in-person visits were our glue.

To this day I smile whenever that security question pops up.

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So let’s talk about friends. What makes an another person a friend, and what makes a friendship? Maybe you think you know what I’ll say and are bored already. Friendship friendship, blah blah. People talk about it all the time. “Yay friendship!” We get it.

But do we really get it? I wonder.

Natural law has a distinct way of talking about friendship (one of the six basic goods). A friend isn’t an acquaintance, someone you hang out or pass time with, the person who eats next to you in the lunchroom or laughs at your jokes. It’s something more specific.

Two friends are connected people who care about each other and desire the other’s well-being, for its own sake. Each wants the best for the other person; they are actively for the basic goods to grow in the other’s life. Your friend reviews your resume and helps you prep for the interview… or takes you to the doctor when you get sick. You do the same for your friend.

You want your friend to grow in the basic goods herself because you care about her… and you also want to engage in the basic goods together with her. The things you do collaboratively point at the goods – together you knit or shoot hoops (play), sit by a waterfall (beauty), talk about books you read or struggles of heart (knowledge), cook and eat (life). The goods multiply when you’re in each other’s company.

Because of this, friendship creates a virtuous cycle – an in-vogue term you may know that actually comes from natural law. It describes a case where enacted goodness prompts more goodness and ultimately creates greater net goodness. When your friend’s life goes well and he flourishes, that brings you happiness. You’re happier when he’s happier and that makes him happier (and so on).

Here’s what true friendship can’t be: two people doing things together aimed at the bad. It can’t be fellow gang members vandalizing the local bridge together. Two guys watching porn together. Two girls gossiping about a classmate, or bullying her on social media. Friendship isn’t operative in these cases, because the actions taken are against the goods. The actions’ goals are bad. Each person moves not toward flourishing but toward decay and diminishment. That’s not friendship.

Another thing that isn’t friendship is when one party begins to interact not for the other’s good and the collective good of the friendship, but for what she can get out of it for herself. She becomes a user instead of a friend. This can be tricky, because actual friends help practically assist each other all the time as they pursue the goods. A friend can give you advice, help you clean your house, give your kids a ride home. This is the instrumental value of friendship, and it’s part of what makes friendship good and worth having. But it can happen that the instrumental aspect takes over - one begins leaning hard on “what you can do for me;” you only hear from her when she wants something

In this case, one “friend” doesn’t engages to help the other grow in goods but her own ends. Using is called “instrumentalizing” in natural law – making something or someone into an instrument to serve one’s own ends. It’s unreasonable and never leads to flourishing. The person instrumentalizing another person isn’t a friend.

The litmus test for real friendship, then, has two parts. First: is it focused on – are actions being taken for – actual basic goods? Second: is it mutual – are both people engaged in helping the other seek goods, with some balance?

When we understand what friendship really is, we can better assess modern scenarios that are supposedly friendships. We can constructively consider the 500 people who follow me (or who I follow) as Facebook “friends.” We can reflect on the boyfriend whose primary role is to take pictures of his girlfriend for her Instagram profile – and is supposed to be happy about it. We can think about pals who only know each other virtually (say through gaming together), never having met IRL. Each of these relationships may have some modicum of friendship within it – they may not be wholly instrumental. But they’re not full, robust friendship. Seeing this, we can ourselves look for and invest in healthier forms.

So three cheers for real friendship! One of the best things in life. Too little a part of our lonely, rushing, self-absorbed world. Worth pursuing, hard – giving ourselves to. In the right way, for the right reasons. Then holding on forever.