Arbitration & Mediation

"F" is for Friend: the Owners' Manual

By Victoria Pynchon

My Twitter account tells me I have more than 2,000 'followers,' and my Facebook page suggests I add someone new to my account as a 'friend' nearly every day. 

Despite our modern online age, people do not become friends (or loyal followers) at the push of a button. We start friendships tentatively, with small admissions of fallibility that won't entirely rip away the costume of the person we're pretending to be.

"I'm actually shy,' I tell an incredulous acquaintance. 'The bravado masks it.'

"I pause and wait for a reciprocal revelation signaling a common desire to take the relationship in a more intimate direction – one in which I signal my willingness to be trusting and demonstrate my ability to be trusted.

"Me, too,' my potential friend might acknowledge. 'I'm actually driven by fear. I know I seem confident, but all this apparent success makes me feel like a fraud. Worse, I'm always feeling guilty that I'm not a better, more attentive mother to my children because I'm so busy pursuing my own success. That's selfish, don't you think?'

With this response my acquaintance is not only reciprocating our growing intimacy, she is deepening it. I was merely talking about my professional life. She's now drilled down into her relationship with her children. We are taking baby steps to friendship, testing one another's ability to move beyond our public selves and open up the door to our private lives and secret fears. We are putting something of ourselves on the line – something vulnerable and valuable – in the hope of finding another person who knows and cares about us, warts and all.

When you consider how vitally important friends are to our emotional well-being, it's surprising we don't have more friendship owners' manuals or, for that matter, friendship counseling. Bookstores are filled with advice manuals for marriages and parenting, but few titles advise us on the care and feeding of our friends – people who  outlast marriages and endure long past the time our children leave home.

What happens when friendships go bad and what, if anything, should we be doing to tend our friendship garden?

For the answer to this and many more conflict resolution questions, you'll have to buy the book, A is for Asshole, the Grownups' ABCs of Conflict Resolution!  We'll keep you up to date here on the publication date, which will be before the holidays.

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on September 15, 2010 (boomark / email).