Friendship Is Always Conditional

 

One of the hardest pills for me to swallow in my adult life has been that none of my friends will be there with me through thick and thin, when things get ugly and I get ugly. No one will be with me to the bitter end. One of the hardest pills to swallow is that friendship is always conditional. 

I have always struggled with this, from high school on. Maybe I was spoiled by a family and parents that loved me unconditionally, even at my very worst. In an ideal world, we would have friends stand by us even when we change, when we do unconscionable things. In reality, I have not found this to be the case. 

And maybe for right reason. Employers don't like pension funds because they put them on the financial liability hook to their employees for life. Is it reasonable for them to incur that risk when people are living longer, and markets are volatile? Maybe not. 

Likewise, maybe my idea of people that will not distance themselves when you become a public embarrassment or a ghoul or a Democrat or an apostate is not reasonable. Maybe the conditional logic and clauses are the appropriate response: we are friends as long as you are Catholic. As long as you don't commit a crime. As long as I still like hanging out with you. As long as you don't get weird.

I've made and lost a lot of friends over the years. Very, very few people will stand by you when you are being crucified. If that's the case, these are the "friendships of utility" in which a quid pro quo unspoken understanding is that we have permission to peel off when we are not being fed by the other, or finding a lack of common bond as things change over the years. 

Again, I think this is just a matter of misplaced expectation. I don't have a friend in my life who has pledged to be there for me unconditionally, nor have I been that friend to others. It's a catch 22, isn't it? When we are younger, we do not have the virtue to be concerned about the ultimate good of another, but are concerned mostly with the emotive and utility (benefits) of the friendship. 

Yet, as we age and acquire virtue, the opportunities to develop true friendships--whether utilitarian or those based on the good--wane. Aristotle considered friendship a virtue, and "necessary for life." Whereas in the modern world, however, we get set in our ways, have families and work obligations, and most men simply deduce that friends are a luxury one can do without. 

Given that a true friendship founded on the good of the other requires trust, intimacy, virtue, self-deference, and vulnerability, it becomes like a needle in a haystack trying to find a male friend to which we can confide and bear burdens for. I'm obviously precluded from seeking such friendships with those of the opposite sex. And among those of my own, it can be very difficult to come by a man willing to enter into something like this. 

Realizing that I will probably never have a true friendship based in filial love and virtue to the level in which I would like is, as I said, a tough pill for me to swallow. Like realizing you'll never be a pro basketball player, or that you'll never do great things in your career. I feel foolish for waking up to it so late. So now it's a matter of adjusting expectations and coming to terms, in a kind of dark night, that maybe unconditional friendship really just is a luxury we are simply not afforded on this side of eternity.