Article Highlights:
- The Greek word for love between friends
- What is a friend?… your answer
- What is a friend?… my answer
- View the new videos on my website
- My book is available on Amazon
Some of you have been following my weekly article for many years and may vaguely recall a series I did in 2015 called Really Big Love and How to Have It. It was a 9 part series, the first several of which discussed and explored aspects of love, using some of the different words for love as understood in Grecian times.
Among the Greek words for love were Eros: romantic, passionate love; Lucus: playful, flirtatious love; Storge: unconditional, familial love; Philautia: self-love; Agape: Universal Love.
One that I did not cover in that series was the love called Philia: intimate, authentic friendship. This is friendship of a duration and type that has developed intimate familiarity – but without sexual intimacy. It has deepened with time, challenge and attention into real abiding love.
Relationships with this quality of Philia love offer the level of companionship, commitment, communication and mutual benefit found between life partners, without developing exclusivity or sexual exchange.
I didn’t discuss this type of love in that earlier series because I felt friendship deserves it’s own series. Funnily enough, it took me all these years to getting around to doing that series. I think I was still learning things I’d like to write about friendship.
Friendship, we know, can be a vital source of love and support. We often hope, perhaps expect, that all our friendships might result in this type of long-lasting and loving friend. This is not always the case, is it?
Why are some friendships so short-lived, others long-lasting? How can we have better relationships with friends? How can we make more or new friends? How can we save a friendship? These are the topics we’ll explore in this series on friendship.
So this is part 10 of the last installment of the Really Big Love series. But it’s also Part 1 of my new series, Friendship. The question that we start with today is, What Is a Friend?
It is only after many friendships come and go and fewer stay that we ask questions such as, “What is a friend, really? What is a friend to me?” We answer in different ways over time. We might say a friend is someone we can trust, someone who is loyal, someone who listens. Answering this question we list qualities that we desire in a friend.
Often such lists are based on past hurts. If a friend gossiped about you, you would probably add to your list: a friend is someone who can keep a confidence. If you have been lied to or betrayed you might say a friend is someone you can trust. Perhaps you like someone you can laugh with so that’s on your list.
It’s very useful to ask ourselves what we think a friend is and why. This helps us understand our own friendship patterns. What’s on your list, what is a friend to you? You might take 5 minutes and make a quick list to see what it shows you. I thought quick list was quite revealing.
We each have many types of friends. For this discussion we aren’t talking about temporary friendships, circumstantial friendships, necessary work friend/acquaintances. We are exploring Philia – intimate, authentic friendships with staying power. It’s important to note that most friendships are not this, these are less common.
Friendships have different purposes and varying benefits. Those that develop the quality of love between friends that the Greeks call Philia take time to develop and require loving care and even “work” to thrive and last.
I’ve noticed a few things about that type of friendship in my life and those things now form my list of three things. My dearest friends are:
1) Capable and desirous of intimacy in friendship
2) Capable and interested in authenticity.
We all have important friendships built on more limited premises. A bond over a hobby for instance or good church friends based on religious activities. A swimming or jogging buddy, a childhood friend we value for shared history.
These form an important circle of friendship but aren’t necessarily ones that grow more intimate, more richly authentic and loving as time goes on. In fact, they don’t necessarily include loving. They often don’t weather the same ups and down and challenges either.
My dearest friends also:
3) “See things through.” This requires constancy. Constancy is a facet of emotional maturity. It’s being able to ask oneself to be constant in regard to another, instead of falling into judgement about them. It’s the ability to remain constant in your commitment to sharing love even when things aren’t working. But this is not co-dependent hanging on, it’s wise and mature staying power.
Loving Philia friendships are always between two people capable of constancy. If you or your friend are not interested in constancy, the relationship will founder with distance or difficulty.
Why Constancy? Constancy means you are able to commit to working things through. It takes both people being constant for longevity to occur. In marriage terms this means you don’t go to bed with unresolved anger, you speak up even when it’s hard and listen when you don’t want to, etc. Enduring friendship requires the same, though many people do not realize this.
Problems occur in all friendships. With constancy there is willingness to see a thing through to a better place. Emotional constancy helps pull you through. Many friendships fail for lack of constancy on the part of one or both friends. If, in a time of relationship challenge, either friends fails or decides not to chose constancy, the relation ends.
If either you or your friend is not capable of constancy, it might be a beneficial friendship, it might be purposeful for now. It might also have degrees of authenticity and intimacy. But it is less likely to become long-lasting. This is good to know. It is also good to ask yourself if you possess constancy.
That’s my list of three necessary qualities for special friendships. Authenticity. Intimacy. Constancy. They don’t guarantee deep love and longevity in friendship but they do increase the odds.
Possessing these qualities, each friend is more willing to be vulnerable and open. They go to the other first when offended, rather than telling others instead. And though all friendships have rhythms of close and apart, they don’t stew and distance for long periods, valuing the friendship enough to remain constant and “see things through.”
Without these attributes a friendship can still be satisfying, important, purposeful and right. Not all friendships need to be more, and not all people want more. Some friendships, however, can and do develop deeper and deeper authenticity and intimacy and achieve that quality of love that the Greeks called Philia.
Friendships have been the backbone of my life. Friendships of all types – from surface friends to constant and deeply loving friends, from good friends to disastrous ones. Through friendship I have learned so much about giving and receiving, truth-telling, my own needs, fears and confusions. And most of all I’ve learned about being a human being. I’ve also experienced life-saving support and suffered indifference and betrayal with friends. I’ve been painfully hurt by some friends, deeply loved by others.
How I have grown through friendship! And perhaps I have even learned over time how to have and be a great friend.
We have a friendship here, you and I. It’s one I treasure whether you read me often or infrequently – the relationship between writer and reader/thinker-experiences. How I love and enjoy the privilege of the time we share in this way.
Lovingly,
X💜Mayet MaHulili Leilani
PS – We Are Light! Experiencing the Truth of Who You Are by Mayet LeiLani is available on Amazon.
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