A Note About Friendship

Several years ago, I got out of a very serious long-term relationship. An engagement, to be exact. While I won’t get into the why and how of the decision, I can say that no matter what, any kind of a breakup is painful and necessitates a sort of reconfiguration of reality. No longer can you rely on the shared future that you planned together or the everyday ways in which someone cared for you. In a significant other, you gain a companion to check in with and lean on for support. Someone to generally help you feel less alone. The break up was hard, but its biggest silver lining was the realization that I already had partners with whom I shared my whole life and would continue to — my friends.

I’ve heard friends come in three categories — leaves, branches, and roots. The leaves are the seasonal friends who might blow away in a storm, or fall off as you evolve. The branches are the friends who’ve been there for longer and will likely stick around, but you can’t lean on too much. And the roots are the friends who can weather it all. I would go so far as to say that this category of friendship helps to nourish you, stabilize you, remind you who you are, and create an ecosystem (community) that promotes shared resources and growth.

Why, as a society, do we place so much emphasis on romantic relationships and minimize platonic ones? No one person can satisfy all of our needs, so we are bound to have relationships beyond our partners if we want to feel fulfilled in life. There’s nothing subversive about that. Maybe you love karaoke, but your partner hates it, so you always go with a friend. Maybe your parents don’t understand your career, so a mentor steps in to provide support. Per cultural norms, we don’t often allow friendship to encroach upon the space (energetically, emotionally, and otherwise) reserved for our nuclear families. But why can’t we appreciate how much platonic relationships do for us? Perhaps community, and thus friendship, used to be built into our society in a way that no longer exists, but as we experience more loneliness, isolate ourselves via social media, and endure higher divorce rates, it isn’t just nice to center and intentionally work towards meaningful relationships, it’s essential.

Studies show that friendships are supportive of our physical and mental health, our financial success, and even our survival. Long term research at Harvard has shown that friendship has a greater impact on our happiness than wealth or success, and even that friendship accounts for a 60% increase in happiness between individuals and the equivalent of $150,000 per year in income in comparison to those who lack strong social bonds. Prolonged loneliness, on the other hand, has been compared to having the long term health effects of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Even before dealing with the aftermath of my breakup, I started to feel the support of my friends. I sensed that I would be able to lean on them for emotional support, and I got more from them than just commiseration. They helped me feel cared for and allowed me to imagine and build a new future. The more I leaned on my friends, the more rooted I felt within myself. And as a newly single person, I found that meeting new people (platonically) with an open heart allowed me to expand into new dimensions of who I could be.

Friendship didn’t always come easily to me, but I’ve learned to treat my time with friends as an investment in a long-term relationship. Just as I am genuinely interested in the lives of others, I’ve learned to pay attention to the small ways in which others express care. I’ve started to see invitations as an expression of genuine interest. Knowing how busy we all are, I value each “how are you?” text, phone call, voice note, or in person hangout I get. Most of all, I pay attention to how each interaction makes me feel. The wrong people can be draining, but the right friends will create ease, stimulate growth, and overall feel additive. There are always nights when I feel anti-social, but just like a workout, I tend to feel better after keeping my commitment and spending time with others. Shared experiences, values, and community are powerful contributors to my well being.

As much as we tell ourselves it’s the cheesiest, most commodified, silly holiday, Valentine’s Day can sometimes bring up hard feelings for those who aren’t in romantic relationships. But what a gift it is to have experienced any kind of love. And whether I’m single or not, I’ll always believe there is truly nothing more precious than being rich in friendship.