Tuesday, November 16, 2021

A Facebook Post About Friendship--with all the comments

Cliff and I eating sushi in Poland--and joking about eating local cuisine.

[I posted this essay on facebook and got such good comments I decided to post it here with the comments.]

A few hours ago I left a weekend with my best friend Cliff Almes. We were roommates in the Army in the 70s. He stayed in Germany and is Bruder Timotheus at a Lutheran Monastery in Darmstadt. Modern life is obsessed with leadership. But leaders without friends are crippled. 

On the way to Germany I listened to a talk from a guy I disagree with on most things, but I agree with him on Friendship: Yesterday I was listening to a podcast from a recent conference in Aspen. The speaker was Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska. He was talking about problems in our culture now and in the future created by the digital revolution. 

But the last problem he mentioned predates the internet by a lot, by centuries to at least the beginning of modernity. Sasse said 29% of American women and 61% of men say their spouse or significant other is their best friend. Sasse said this means women are at least twice as good at making and keeping solid, deep friendships as men. At least. 

I can't speak for women, but a man who has no male friends is crippled in life's journey. I have known many men in business and in the Army who have made some public profession that their wife is their best friend and very privately told me of their "best friend" was going to make them choose between their marriage and the Army. 

Friendship is one of the Four Loves CS Lewis explains in his wonderful book of the same title. It is equal to romance, family love and charity. But a half century ago, Lewis said it was rare and becoming more so among modern professional men. Less so among women. Could you tell your best friend of the rush you felt when you confronted another man in public and he backed off? I could. 

My best friends are a firefighter and a monk, both veterans. They are also men and understand the rush of a fight. Men and women are very different in so many ways and those ways become prominent at moments of stress. 

To believe in the power of love seems crazy in the midst of our fractured world. 

But true, deep friendship, built over years and years proves just how love works. We choose our friends, and they choose us. All four loves are what makes a great life.

The comments from Facebook:

      • Pete Lang
        I have been meeting with a group of men every week to talk about life for decades. They know me better than my wife ever will. I am not so good at the confrontation, but I understand the rush of when I offer my wisdom to another and you can see the light come in their eyes as they finally get “it”
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      • Shea IL
        I would add another category that I think essential. I think I first heard the expression from my kids - friend group. I think having a community of some sort is equally important. This is why bowling leagues, social clubs, etc evolved. Sometimes th… 
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          Neil Gussman
          Shea IL oh of course. A group of friends is another dimension of friendship. Just as important.
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        • David Pertuz
          Shea IL agree with this. I have a group of friends that I’ve been with for twenty years now - we go on vacations together, etc. - and they’re priceless.
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      • Suzanne Shelley
        Neil Gussman ~ This may be one of your best posts ever. I’d say you hit the nail on the head but there are so many nails mentioned in this thoughtful observation. So glad you got back to Darmstadt to see your best friend ~ seems you have been able to m… 
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      • Sarah Lenora Gingrich
        Agreed. When we lived in Chile my husband would sometimes, for lack of fellow English-speakers, begin to talk with me about Nascar or football. Though seemingly innocuous, I know how very desperate that showed his situation to be, since I am not an e… 
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      • Meredith Hainsworth
        I’ve never understood having your spouse as your best friend. I have such a different relationship with Jeff than I do with my bestie. Both incredibly important people to me, but both relationships are so different. I think the strength in my relations… 
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          Neil Gussman
          And we are embodied spirits in some form. We express ourselves in physical ways. In talking about Friendship in The Four Loves, CS Lewis says men and women can be friends, but when friendship "turns into" love, the phrase itself describes what happens. The characteristic posture of friendship is side-by-side moving toward a goal, working together, etc. The posture of Romantic Love is face-to-face.
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          Neil Gussman
          Meredith Hainsworth when men share hardship and danger those who are capable of friendship bond. It’s no accident my best friends are soldiers and racers.
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          Neil Gussman
          Meredith Hainsworth When I did not recover full use of my left (dominant) arm last year, I realized I would never again throw a punch. I told a few friends. My wife would not share my moment of mourning.
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          Neil Gussman
          Meredith Hainsworth I know. To say a spouse is one’s best friend says nothing about the sincerity of the speaker, but it says for sure that person does not understand friendship and most likely has no real friends.
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        • Colleen Stameshkin
          I could not disagree more. Husbands can be the best of friends, just as a person can have other wonderful close friends of the opposite sex. And also siblings as close friends, even if that often is far from the case. What matters in all these cases is the particulars of your relationships, which are different in every case, so to reason from only your own experience or that of your acquaintances can at best give you unreliable generalizations.
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        • Meredith Hainsworth
          Neil Gussman and I do think that there’s a major problem in our society of men not being encouraged to feel emotion or be vulnerable or whatever and therefore turning to their wives to meet that need. Which is so sad
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      • Leif Dolan
        I can't say that my wife is on the list of being a good and close friend. Sometimes she is a foe. We live together and have great love for one another.
        Friendship with other people is not clearly defined for me. I am friendly with my Rabbi, but would… 
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          Neil Gussman
          Leif Dolan as I said to Meredith when men share hardship and danger those who are capable of friendship bond. It’s no accident my best friends are soldiers and racers. Same for you it seems. It's also a matter of sharing lots of time. The Army gives people plenty of time to be stuck doing nothing and able to talk. I used to ride motorcycles. As with bicycles, the difference between those who race and those who ride is huge. My bicyclist friends are racers. Tourist bicyclists (like Harley riders) do not bond the same way.
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      • Michal Meyer
        The post and responses make for great reading.
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      • Colleen Stameshkin
        Maybe the disagreement here relates to what people mean by "best friend." I have had best friends in the past, by which I mean I could easily state that this particular friend was the person I liked best, wanted to spend the most time with, and truly l… 
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          Neil Gussman
          Colleen Stameshkin Men are so different and male friendship expresses that difference. In the Army, and on loading docks where I worked, one way men point out their friends is by saying horrible things to and about each other in front of a group. It sounds like they hate each other but they are saying "I can say this to Tom, but if you say the same thing, Tom and I will kick your ass." Men also easily form groups and follow an alpha. Anyone who has coached both men and women knows how different men and women are in this way. It made the Army even more difficult for young women. With six kids, I was in a buzzing hive of sibling rivalry. I know siblings can bond, but competitive kids define themselves in opposition to siblings. Best friends in childhood seem to be a refuge from the tensions of family.
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