Last week, I gave a talk on Catholic friendship at Our Lady of Victory High School here in Denver. It was a great opportunity for the kids. But it was also a great opportunity for me to spend some time contemplating a topic we don’t often contemplate.
It seems to me that, among all of the forms of love, friendship is the one that gets short shrift. There are many books about how to improve your marriage or maintain a happy family. By contrast, I think we assume that friendships are the kind of relationships that just sort themselves out, and we don’t need to pay much attention or put a lot of effort into them.
That is a shame.
When I was preparing the talk, I leaned heavily on C.S. Lewis’ book “The Four Loves,” combined with a smattering of St. John Paul II and a few tidbits from the ancient Greeks. It led me to some insights that seemed worth sharing, to encourage all of you to give some thought to these relationships.
Lewis says that friendship is always about something. We don’t build friendships in a vacuum. We don’t choose friends randomly. In order for someone to stand out from the crowd, for us to want to spend time with them, there must be something we share in common, some interest or commonality or intersection in our lives. The ancient Greeks said that those commonalities tend to fall into three different categories, which create three categories of friendship, or three legs to the barstool of friendship.
The first is mutual benefit. These are the friends we work with toward a goal. Co-worker friends fall into this category, as do school friends, or friends we embark with on projects. Maybe it’s the friend you’re working with to rebuild a car, or write a book or launch a side hustle. This is the friend who helps you get to the finish line and makes the journey more fun.
Speaking of that, the second category is pleasure. These are the friends we have fun with. Maybe they’re the ones who make us laugh, or who mountain bike with us, or who like the same vacation spots we do. Whatever we’re doing, we enjoy having them around while we’re doing it.
And finally, there are friendships based on The Good. These are people whose thinking on some level aligns with our own, or the people we admire. Maybe we share a worldview, or political views, values, religious faith, approach to life, etc. Maybe we just enjoy being around them because they radiate love, which is always attractive.
The best friendships, of course, rest on more than one leg. It’s nice to meet someone who makes us laugh. But when they make us laugh and they share our worldview, that’s better yet.
Of course, any of this can be good or bad. We could have friends who join with us in planning a bank heist, or who enjoy shooting heroin with us, or whose corrupt values align with our own. The assumption is that, in a healthy friendship, whatever brings us together also brings us closer to health and truth and beauty and God and all of the good things.
Which is why friendships based in The Good tend to be the strongest and the most lasting.
The most important relationships in our lives evolve and change, grow and sometimes end. While the start of a high school reunion is so much fun, by the end you’ve pretty much run out of things to talk about, and you’re ready to get back to your real life. We generally aren’t interested in moving into the future with people we share nothing with but the past.
The friendships that endure are based on a more solid foundation. When we have people in our lives who we genuinely enjoy being around, who help us reach our goals, and who we can talk to about the things that matter — these are the real friends. These relationships are truly a gift from God, and they should not be taken for granted. We should be willing to put effort into our friendships, just like we do into our romantic and family relationships.
I was going to address St. John Paul II’s thoughts on love and friendship, but that will have to be our discussion next time.
For now, this is your homework. Think about your “inner circle.” Identify your real friends, the ones you most enjoy talking to, or recreating with, or working with. And once you have, think about what you can do to strengthen those relationships, to let them know they are important to you.
Are they going through a difficult time? Do they need anything? Has it just been too long since you have caught up with them?
And if you don’t have any of those friendships, then your homework is to go out and start building them. Look for the people you admire, the ones you enjoy being around. Reach out to them. Invite them over for dinner or out for a beer. Go make a friend or two.
You’ll thank me for it when they thank you for it.
Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver.
