Quote:
Originally Posted by Supple Cow
Most of the friends I shared so many values with once were the first ones to jump ship when I grew up, examined things for myself and came to hold different values and beliefs. Then there were the few who surprised me and rewarded me for taking a chance on sharing the new me with them. These were the friends who looked at me like I was crazy as I revealed that I had been nervous to tell them certain things about my life. They were the friends who hugged me and said, "Well, yeah, it might suck if something bad happens to you because of your new ideas, but why would I ever get mad at you for being who you are?" They are the ones I call to rescue me in the middle of the night when I run out of AAA service calls for the year and I am stuck on the highway without gas. They are the ones I call on unexpectedly when I feel lost or as if I've committed a terrible blunder. And I would get out of bed at 3am and drive an hour to pick them up if they got stranded without gas too. Unfortunately, they are spread all over the country, so I can really only do that for one or two of them, but my point stands.
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This is what I'm talking about. Maybe "values" was the wrong word... but when I mean value, I mean friends who are not going to judge me for changing my mind, and who I basically trust to make ethical decisions in their own lives and not hurt people around them. Problematically, the "friend" I mentioned in the OP (who is voting McCain, for reasons she has failed to help me understand so far) also stood me up when I was driving across the country, after 3 months of planning to meet up with her on the way... and that hurt, a lot. And that colors our interaction as well, not just from the political disagreement but the fact that she committed a major friend foul and disappointed me with her behavior.
Anyway, I agree with you Supple, the friends I had in undergrad shared the same "values" (evangelical Christianity) with me at the time, but once I started to explore other perspectives, they pretty much ditched me. I did not appreciate that. It was just those 3 best friends of mine who had seen me go from agnostic to religious and back to agnostic again, and they couldn't have cared less what I was about... they supported me and did not judge, and I did the same for them. We are always there for each other... we never "stood each other up," as this old friend of mine recently did. We know that when we call upon each other, we are there for each other. And for me, that's a shared "value" that my other friend did not have... who did not even think it was worth calling me to let me know that she couldn't meet me, on my cross-country drive where I went out of my way to meet her as planned. I find that frankly rude.
Looking at the responses, though, I wonder if for perhaps some women, the way we conduct our best friendships differs from that of how some men do it. I've noticed that for ktsp and his friends, for example, there isn't a huge need to agree on big things, or to talk very intimately about things every time they meet... there's a lot of hanging out, shooting the shit, maybe arguing about politics, playing pool, having a beer, etc. It's a very different dynamic than I have with my best girl friends, because with them we basically sit and talk, and go very deep into the details, decisions, and judgments of our lives since we last talked, the conflicts over what to do or what not to do, analyzing every possibly angle of everything, talking about emotions and making ourselves vulnerable with each other. We trust each other to be vulnerable about everything when we get together, and even though we're having fun and watching a movie or something, it always comes down to the sharing and talking dynamic.
So for me, I would have a hard time connecting at that level with a friend if (for example) she told me she was cheating on her husband, or marrying someone for his money, or who didn't possess any critical thinking skills (as Snowy mentioned earlier)... because for me, those are all things that I just can't go along and support her on, and it would throw a barrier between our intimacy, somehow. It doesn't mean we wouldn't be friends/acquaintances, or that I wouldn't still care for that person, but I could not be *very* close to someone who thought that way, who thought it was alright to hurt people she loved, who valued money over all else, or who did not think critically for herself about important issues.
I'm rambling now, but my point (Will!) is that hey, not everyone is going to conduct their relationships in the same way. I'm not looking for an argument about the "best way to have friends" on this thread. I'm just curious about how many people do have close, intimate friends with vastly different philosophies/ideologies/what have you, and how many do not. That's all. For me, my method of friendship works, and after 20+ years with these girls, I don't see that changing anytime soon.