Are friends simply those who are around?

I went to the shore today! At Seaside Heights I saw the Atlantic and honestly, after years in Texas and Missouri, it hit different. It felt less like going to the shore and more like visiting the ocean itself, something vast and incredible and beautiful. I can't thank my friend Paul enough for suggesting this short trip. I bought violet candy and salt water taffy and have officially become a grandparent even without kids. I also snapped two photos which, as bad as they are, I'd like to share:

This photo of the beach and the inactive amusement park doesn't do justice to what was in my ears. I was hearing the dull thud of the waves the whole time and loving it. The boardwalk wasn't too busy but I don't think I would have felt lonely if I was there alone. The ocean seemed very much alive.

It isn't summer yet but I hope I'm doing a good job of making more moments count.

I promised you that I'd talk a bit about Sheila Heti's Pure Colour. Below is a passage about friendship I got stuck on:

Sheila Heti on page 34 of Pure Colour: "We only keep in touch with the friends we have made since the friendship revolution, which made being in touch of primary importance. The friends we knew from way back when—we felt content to let them slip away; to continue the traditions of the old world into now."

I want to talk about the idea that there's an older notion of friendship where we naturally let go of people who were close. Before the above passage, Heti writes: "Your friends were simply who was around." I feel like this is true to a degree. There are people I outgrew after high school very quickly, not because I was a remotely good person, but because the challenges I faced were inconceivable to them.

And it is true that there's been some kind of "friendship revolution," where, for example, we collect friends like previous generations collected trading cards. Do we make the cards more valuable by saying "Happy Birthday" when Facebook tells us to? Does this help us get a "network" from which we can benefit? Is simulating being aware of people really friendship?

Heti does allude to a deeper "friendship revolution" than what I've just mentioned. Before staying in touch online, there were Christmas cards and alumni associations and people you met at parties who would call occasionally. These, I assume, can heavily annoy someone who understands friends as a product of a particular time and place. Weirdly enough, I feel like the most positive aspects of Heti's thinking recall how people related to church. If you moved away, you joined another parish. A whole new community with baptisms to celebrate, god-parenting to do, matchmaking to attempt, and poor to serve. The old friends were gone because the moral purpose which served them automatically translated into joining another community.

Of course, I am skeptical of Heti's skepticism. I'm telling my students to make friends on campus if they feel up to it. I'll add that some of the friends who proved to be most helpful in my life I didn't fully appreciate until much, much later.

I'm actually angry at people who told me to throw good things away, especially because this meant throwing people eager to talk to me away. Heti's reasoning, to a degree, assumes friends happen. If you're somewhere, they will show. As someone who went years without serious social interaction, I can safely say this is a fatal conceit.

It's worth trying for rich, developed friendships where you learn how to live by staying in touch or going through life together. I don't think this is opposed to the pursuit of knowledge or beauty. It's really an expression of the deepest eros. Someone who believes everything resides with those who are perpetually young and hot doesn't want to try to love life. There's no openness to suffering. Life is so hard to love that you often only truly love it when you let it go.

Trying for genuine friendship is a risk. Sometimes the risk involves going back to your reunion and finding everyone else has moved on. Or sending a Christmas card to someone you lost touch with. Or just thinking "hey, maybe that person's cool." Right now, I've seen a few people decide they don't even want to try to talk to anyone different. I guess that's a choice. Unfortunately, I have seen firsthand how that works out. The angriest, most miserable people I know have arranged their social situations exactly how they wanted, not unlike cards in a game of solitaire.

References

Heti, Sheila. Pure Colour. New York: Picador, 2022. 33-34.