Friends

Is it What They Do for Us? Or, What We Do for Them?

William Sundwick

Aristotle defined three types of friends in the Nicomachean Ethics. Friendship could be for utility, pleasure, or goodness. Friends of utility are like business relationships; goods and services are exchanged by such friends. Friends of pleasure are those to whom we are attracted, either by physical appearance or for amusement. The third kind of friend, however, the friend of goodness, is the Justice friendship. It is based not on what they can do for us, but what we can do for them.

It is this third type of friendship that is the deepest, and longest lasting. It also may take the longest to develop. It is marked by intentionality, whereas the first two may be accidental. Aristotle’s “city” needs all three types to flourish. But it is the third type, the justice friendship, which maintains the city as an entity.

To be called a “friendship,” surely a relationship with another human being must have a component of mutuality. All friendships are two-way. But the motivator is not always so mutual. Children start with friends of pleasure only. As they become more autonomous, common interests emerge, thus friends of utility. These continue into adulthood, some early friendships fading, new ones developing, and slowly the justice, or goodness, friends begin to reveal themselves. With modern telecommunications, not even distance can interfere with goodness friendships. They may last a lifetime.

But no friends are made unless we take a chance, either with stimulus or response. When we do a good turn or start thinking about opportunities to give, we are on our way to developing “level 3” friends. Often, the principal barrier to such behavior is difficulty in trusting others. As adults, we are vulnerable to many hurts, and even financial loss, when we jump too quickly at overtures from strangers and acquaintances. We also erect cultural barriers against friendship with “certain kinds” of people, based on our understanding of personal or tribal history.

Loneliness at all ages comes from the sense that something is missing, something either not yet defined or lost in the past. That empty feeling is aggravated by fear of the unknown – of taking risks. It is mitigated by the goodness factor. Through dispassionate risk analysis, or faith, we endeavor to overcome the fear.

It’s worth some effort, since there is evidence that friends can make the difference between good mental health and serious disability, even death. The deep friendships are the best, but the child (or adolescent) in us can also benefit from pleasure friendships, and the adult “operator” in us can benefit from friends of utility. Common interests, flattery, and physical attraction work at any age. Adults tend to dig deeper when they start asking questions like “where am I going?” In adulthood, we start playing chess in our relationships, thinking several moves ahead. And, we discover politics! “What can I get if I give this much? A little more?” The onset of old age brings new questions, like “Does anybody notice me any more?” – and, possibly, more assertive reaching out. We may discover that new friendships based on nostalgia have limitations. Activities, social or otherwise, are far more interesting.

These days, many of us live in two social environments -- traditional face-to-face friends sharing common interests, or mutual attraction, and  virtual friends on social media. The virtual world has friends of utility and friends of pleasure, but also friends of goodness. Your comfort level in either of these two environments may vary with practice. The virtual world contains all the same motivators for establishing and maintaining friendships as the “real world,” and all the same constraints.

One question I have about virtual friends is: do they see themselves as real people? Or, have they so given themselves over to the virtual world that they have now lost touch with their real flesh-and-blood selves? I have difficulty ascertaining this about some Facebook friends whom I’ve never met “IRL.”

There are some additional constraints in the online world -- language vs. physical touch and emojis vs. body language. Words do have meaning, but touch is more intimate (even given the same level of privacy). And, those emojis were invented by an artist in a studio, whereas your body language (including tone of voice) is likely unconscious and spontaneous unless you’re a trained actor. Then, there is eye contact – not achievable any way I know in the virtual world. Evaluating the quality of online friendships over “real-life” can be challenging, even in the Aristotelian schema. Your friends in the ether should help, just like IRL!

In retirement, I have probably developed a richer world of virtual friendship than my IRL milieu. This may have come naturally for me, as my network of real-world friends, beyond my immediate family, was always slim. Indeed, a primary reason for my decision to “cut the cord” four years ago was that the quality of friendships at work was deteriorating – without much hope for improvement. I had questions about mutuality with my work friends: was I doing as much for them as they were for me? When the answer to that question became “no,” I decided to leave. It didn’t hurt that I retained a fair degree of confidence in my ability to make new friends in retirement, thinking my skill set was perfectly adequate to the task.

As a test of those skills, I now ask myself whether any work relationships have survived, four years on. Some have survived in the online realm but I’ve physically met up with work friends only occasionally in four years, and only at parties. A valid test?

Another question I’m asking myself lately – is there anybody I would ask to deliver a eulogy at my funeral? I am hard pressed to come up with any names aside from immediate family. Am I just too private? Have I not given enough to others? Surely, if there were somebody, I would know, right?

 “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” - Carl W. Buechner

Exit Strategy

Was Getting Out Inevitable?

Flint Series, Chapter 5

William Sundwick

Sometimes I think that friendships are simply a matter of convenience. While many people seem to make life-long friendships with kids they grew up with, my experience has been different. I lost contact with my childhood friends in high school, lost touch with my high school friends while we were all away at college, didn’t pursue college friends after the post-college diaspora. Indeed, even grad school, which was right here in the DC area, didn’t produce any lasting relationships, despite many of us staying here to pursue our careers.

No, my life has been marked by associations based on externalities, convenience, common interests – and those interests have changed over the years.

Through high school, in Flint, my primary interest focused on my future. Not that the present was so bad, just that it seemed to have no growth possibilities. Flint was already as big as anybody in my world could imagine it. My friends would say, “Well, you may not know where you’ll end up, but it sure as hell won’t be here!” My mother said with a look of anguish on her face, “Surely you must come up with a plan to go somewhere else?” My father mostly would laugh at the prospect of coming back to Flint after college – “What, and work for GM?” he chortled. And, he had been a General Motors “lifer.”

Only the “other Sundwicks” in Flint had any sense of attachment to the city. Perhaps it came from their mother’s family, the Stebbins. Perhaps it was from the complex web of social interconnections that the three siblings had woven over more years than my relatively brief Flint lifespan. As it turned out, only one of the three left Flint – middle cousin, Bob.

During one foray back to Flint, in 1979, staying with cousin John, I contacted a high school friend who was still in Flint (hadn’t seen him in more than a decade). He had graduated from MSU in E. Lansing, with a degree in oriental philosophy, and was working as a computer programmer for the City of Flint and raising his young family there. He was the exception.

Everybody else from high school, by that time, was far away. Even though, in 1979, I didn’t know where any of them were, it seemed inevitable they wouldn’t be In Flint.  I believe it was inevitable for me, and I never needed an exit strategy.

Once Google was available, I discovered a Ph.D. dissertation from friend Nate. And my mother had informed me, when I moved to Northern Virginia, that childhood friend Charles had married a “Korean girl” and was living in Reston. I never contacted him, though. I have no idea what happened to Abe, best of friends through both junior high and high school. But, it didn’t matter. The deed was done, escape effected. All who came before erased from memory.

Is there something wrong with me?

Once, during a trip from Kalamazoo in my college senior year (1968-69), I dropped in unannounced at Abe’s house on Mackin Road and talked with his younger brother, Sol. I introduced my girlfriend of the moment, who had driven there with me.

What transpired in the conversation is fuzzy, but one haunting aside from Sol keeps impinging on my consciousness. I believe he interjected, almost unnoticed by me at the time, “You know Abe is gay, right?” I think I didn’t want to acknowledge the import of that. I didn’t reply. In high school, he often joked (I thought) about “us” being “queer” – I had always taken it as a lame excuse for our not being able to find attractive girls to date at the time. I guess the meaning was deeper for him.

I’ve often wondered what happened to Abe during the AIDS epidemic of the eighties. But, I never followed up to locate Sol or Abe. No trace of either on Facebook, Twitter, or Google.

Abe had been the ringleader of the whole Get Out of Flint movement, not that there was much opposition from anybody else in our crowd. But, he was the most vociferous. Could he have been motivated by some personal animus against that conventional blue-collar midwestern city? His alienation may have been stronger than the rest of ours, and not just because of his Holocaust survivor parents, either!

All this leads me to wonder if any of us has an obligation to our hometown. What is it about place that can inspire loyalty, a desire to return after leaving? To “give back”?

In the case of Flint, the city has become known everywhere over the last thirty years as a dying place. Poisoning its residents through willful negligence has only been the “icing on the cake” of a three-decades-long disinvestment by its corporate overlord, General Motors, and by politicians not beholden in any way to those residents – the poorest city in the country, from a 2017 survey. Flintoids don’t have the money to buy the politicians. And, that generations-long brain drain, common to many rust belt cities, depletes any wherewithal to resist. We all shed a tear for Flint, but what have we done about it?

In the last chapter of my saga, I will try to shed some light on where the city is now. Some folks there remain optimistic, others are merely trying to keep expectations low. Is the popular local meme true? -- “Flint, coming soon to a city near you!”

Friends: Virtual vs. “Real”

Don’t Feel So Guilty about Social Media

William Sundwick

Since the recent revelation of theft of personal data from Facebook, we are especially sensitive to privacy concerns in our interconnected world. And, while we can easily see the psychology of social media addiction and associated behavioral disorders, defending the omnipresent nature of our digital lives is harder. But, the truth is social media facilitate communication among people who may not otherwise be connected.

We know that Facebook’s all-powerful secret algorithm tracks all our behavior on the platform, and other platforms if we let it, sorting it into data packets that can be “weaponized” by advertisers and others. But, one consistent feature of Facebook, since its origin (2004), has been that you must enter a fair amount of personal information to establish an account. Other social media platforms have allowed easier anonymity, especially in the earlier generation of chat rooms and bulletin boards. In those late-20^th century and early -21^st century environments, you really didn’t know if the person you were talking with was anybody in real life (IRL). Today, Facebook is tougher than Twitter in this regard. Bots can easily prowl the Twitter platform -- I think bots may be my principal followers there. Twitter is probably as good as Facebook for news feeds, but its 280-character limit for tweets does constrain freedom of expression some – especially for writers. We resort to the tweetstorm for a solution.

Although Facebook tries to stifle “catfish” (assumed false identities, usually for illicit romantic escapades), it can do nothing to prevent users from adopting a social media “avatar” (persona) which reveals only what the user wants to reveal about themselves to their friends. But, isn’t that what we all do with our friends and acquaintances IRL, anyway?

So, how do we select friends in the virtual world? Different approaches seem to suit different social media users. Some consider their online friends to be the same folks they know IRL. The social media platform is simply another way of communicating with them – when voice and in-person meetings are not possible. This essentially relegates the social media platform to nothing more than email. I have heard of people who will “unfriend” any Facebook friend whom they haven’t spoken with IRL in more than a year. On the other hand, many social media users find the digital world to be an entirely different realm than the IRL world. Their Facebook friends may not have any overlap with their “real world” friends. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. Of course, caution is required in accepting Facebook friend requests, but we’re usually willing to do some diligence for unsolicited requests.

Online friendships are important to some people. They may be socially isolated in their real-world environment, through no fault of their own. Perhaps they live in a very hostile social milieu, and don’t have the means to move away. Perhaps there are subjects which cannot be broached IRL within their circle; but online, anything goes. Geography can play a role as well. It may be too difficult to travel to friends. Perhaps you live in a wasteland, where there just aren’t many people – at least not many who share common interests. Disabilities can inhibit one’s ability to get out or navigate difficult terrain. This may include poverty or psychological deficit in communication skills. Online platforms can mitigate many of these problems, hence become one’s primary “neighborhood” for social interaction.

But, can you rely on virtual friends the same way you can on a “real” friend? It depends on what kind of success you feel you’ve had with those IRL friends. With most of us, there is a sliding scale of how “good a friend” someone is – and, it’s usually unknown where they fall on that scale until they’re tested. That test, whatever it is, can also be applied to virtual friends. Do they give you emotional support? Will they come to your aid when you need it? Are they loyal? None of these things requires physical presence – except maybe hugs (or physical intimacy). Facebook, at least, has expanded its collection of emojis to express “virtual hugs and kisses.” And, as a writer, I can vouch for the power of written language, when applied skillfully, to provide succor – as easy online as on paper.

Of course, the classic excuse for a friendship, even more than “loyalty,” is mutual interest. The online world is fine for sharing common interests. But if the interests involve physical manipulation of objects in the real world (like crafts), eventually people with the same interest will probably want to meet-up. They also want to meet-up just to experience dimensions of intimacy precluded from an online conversation – including innocent stuff, like body language, as well as romantic encounters.

If your philosophy of virtual friendships leans more toward viewing the online world as an extension of IRL social networks, then meet-ups are already part of the rules. Your virtual friends are already granted the same privileges and access as the IRL friends – they’re the same people. If you prefer to maintain strict separation of the virtual from the real world, you’re probably seeing the virtual milieu as a refuge from the IRL world. The corollary here is that your virtual friends have more privileges and access to you than your real-world friends – you may be more reticent to express feelings with the IRL friends. Meet-ups may be forbidden or purely accidental.

Meet-ups may not be all that you had hoped, in the case of trying to make plans online for an encounter. Perhaps physical meet-ups work better in the first case, where they’re conditions of the friendship from the outset, or accidental encounters for the latter case. I have not had such an experience with a digital-only friend, although I have many virtual friends, some in my local geographic area (I live in a major metro area, common interests might very well accidentally bring us together). But, the prospect does bring an air of excitement to my virtual life.

Technology helps provide solutions to the boundary problem with virtual friends. Both Facebook and Twitter allow use of photographs and videos. (And Instagram is built entirely around shared photos). Since most of us carry our phones/cameras in our pockets, visual and audio sharing is frequently part of the social media experience. Some research suggests that comparative behavior of your personal sense of self with what you see of your friends online may contribute to depression, but the other side of the coin is that you are communicating much better using a picture of yourself -- and voice if its a video -- than by using written words alone. The problem is that you may impose a level of intimacy on somebody who’s not willing to accept it! One should avoid online bullying, in any form, even if it amounts to nothing more than bragging about, or advertising, your life. 

I may experiment with more audio-visual communication in my Facebook net, but I will be sure to ask permission first.

So, if you want to own your online experience with virtual friends, and this should be everybody’s goal, you should feel that meet-ups are optional, not required. You always have the agency to decide what you want to share with your virtual friends. Your avatar is under your control. But, you must maintain respect for your friends’ feelings – don’t force anything on them that they may not want – just as in real life.

Remember to give lots of positive reinforcement to your online friends – we all crave “narcissistic supply.” On Facebook, those reaction emojis go a long way, but comments go even further. Despite his secret algorithm, Mark Zuckerberg’s famous “manifesto” of 2017 seems to encourage this. Avoid trolls, unfriend and block them as necessary – and stay away from Facebook Discussion Groups that don’t adequately police trolling. Nobody has time for the negative stuff. And, walking away is invisible online.

Let’s have fun out there!