More Than Friends

“A friend loveth at all times.” Proverbs 17:17 KJV

“And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship. And he answered, saying: Your friend is your needs answered…For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace..And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared.” From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Over the years I have heard it said, just like I heard a few days ago, “He wants us to be ‘more than friends’ ".  Can you be “more than friends”? I don’t think so.

For some reason people think that adding a sexual relationship to a friendship will deepen the relationship and that now they will become “more than friends”. Think about it. Sexual relationships can sometimes deepen a relationship, but it always makes the relationship more complicated. And let’s say that trouble arises in this relationship, to whom do the parties go to talk about it? One or both of them call on a friend. As Gibran so poetically said,” For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared.” p. 64 The Prophet. And why do we seek out our friends in times of distress in the other relationship, especially one that is physical in nature? We seek them out because we know that we will be heard and accepted with no judgement, with no strings attached. Can we say as much about the sexual relationship that has gone south?

So incorporate sex into your relationship if you choose to, but don’t expect to  become “more than friends”. In my opinion this reality even applies to marital relationships. The marriage began as a friendship, but now it’s just a social and legal contract. To dissolve this union can be a legal,  relational and financial nightmare. And while you’re trying to work things out or dissolve the contract, who do you seek out to talk to? You find your best friend. And how many marriages dissolve when that couple has remained best friends? Not very many. Maybe none. I know people who have had multiple partners and spouses over the years, but still have the same best friend. So what relationship is better, the one that became “more than friends” or just your garden variety “best friend”? Your best friend has seen you through all of it. And will see you through the next breakup, as well. 

Tomorrow I’m going to spend a couple of days with someone who has been my friend for over 35 years. He and I have been through much alone and together. He has told me numerous times over the years, “Please call me anytime you need to talk and I’ll be here for you.” And I know he means it. I’m sure it’s possible for our friendship to deepen in the coming months and years, but I can’t imagine any way that we can become “more than friends”.  Why would we want to?

If you are in a relationship that is in trouble and has moved on from friendship, consider trying to rekindle the friendship before you dissolve the relationship. How many times have you heard someone say who has been divorced, “And now we’re better friends than ever”?  Couldn’t you have somehow found that friendship before the divorce and salvaged that relationship? Why do you have to survive relational hell before becoming friends? And if you can find a way to become friends again after a nasty breakup, doesn’t it stand to reason that you could have found that friendship before it got so bad?

So all this to say, the next time your friend seeks you out to say, “And we are considering becoming ‘more than friends’, listen thoughtfully and respectively and then say, “ Go to bed if you choose to, but never try to be ‘more than friends’. But I’ll still be here for you if you need me.” Then you’ll laugh and talk about other things that matter to both of you. That’s what friends do.

Home

“For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey but only the beginning–not home but the place through which we must pass if ever we are to reach home at last.”

―Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

My wife and I are compatible in every way possible. We share the same political convictions and religious convictions; we love the same football team, the Auburn Tigers. We share the same grief when Auburn loses--like they did yesterday. We enjoy the same food and restaurants. For the most part we have the same friends. Considering that we are, indeed, “the opposite sex”, it’s quite amazing how alike we are. But of all the things we have in common, the most significant thing is how both of us prefer being at home. Of all the places on earth, the place we like the most is in Ringgold, Georgia on Timber Ridge Trail.

I wrote this blog post several days ago. In my opinion it was one of my best. However, Blogspot, from time to time does something very strange. As I’m writing, all of a sudden all that I have written simply disappears. Even though I’ve “saved” it, the words just vanish into cyberspace. Because of this, I usually write to a Word document, save the document and copy and paste it to Blogspot. This works very well. The only thing, sometimes I decide to take my chances by writing on Blogspot. In this case, it was a bad gamble. Those words are gone.

This particular post called “Home” I thought was particularly personal and particularly good. So good that except for what I wrote above, I’m not going to try to write it again. Well, like the Capital One credit card commercial, “One more thing…” What did Buechner mean when he wrote that we must pass through “Bethlehem” if we are ever to reach home? I don’t know; you’d have to ask Frederick Buechner. But what it means to me is that we were all born somewhere and it’s important to never forget where we were born, how and where we were raised and how grateful we need to be to the person who birthed us and the people who kept us alive until we gained survival skills on our own. I think too that he is suggesting that in spite of the fact that Mary and Joseph had no good reason to be in Bethlehem, because of what happened there, now 2000 years later it is one of the most visited and revered of all cities on earth. Maybe 2000 years from now people will visit your city because of you?

What you are reading here was born as a Word document. It then was copied and pasted here. And here, for better or for worse, is where these words will grow up and live.