Friendships with a difference

On how we make friends

As we go through life, we gather an eclectic group of friends around us. Perhaps not completely intentionally, but life brings different types of people into our lives. And those people become our friends as we go through life together. We collect people along the way, experience things with them and they then become part of our lives. How much do we seek friends with differences though? Do we surround ourselves in the safety and security of people like us? Or do we seek different experiences through different types of friendships?

And do you ever look around at people and realise that you view friendships in different ways to other people?

Friends through the ages

One aspect I find fascinating is the ages of friends people gather around them. Most people do seem to stay within the age they are, roughly speaking. It’s unusual to find a lot of people with friends of very different ages. Which makes sense as most people make friends with people who they have things in common with. People go through stages of life together with their friends.

It’s not a particularly deliberate and intentional thing, but I have always had friends of very different ages. So I have friends in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s and it’s not unusual for me to be out with people of very different ages going through different things in life. I think that’s why these so called milestone birthdays are not that significant to me. The people I spend time with are at different stages of their lives, so there might be different milestone birthdays going on in the same year.

When I look at it more closely, I do make friends with people who I have things in common with as that’s the natural instinct for people. Most of my close friends don’t have children, for example. Or if they do, their kids are now in their teens or older than that. For my friends who do have children, they learnt long ago not to invite me to their kid’s birthday parties. It’s a difference which we have all learnt to work around.

What happens though when differences divide friendships?

Friendship divisions

When I was younger, there were people that came into my friend’s lives in their relationships who were sometimes so different that it caused a separation between us. Often when that relationship ended the friendship might resume. What became more and more difficult were differences in friendships across political divides. I became acutely more aware that some differences were more difficult to overcome. Where a political choice showed me a side to people that I struggled to un-see. The difference caused separations and divides.

It’s something I am working through right now as I am working on a TedX talk about how we need to come together with those who have different opinions. How can we seek to understand what led to those choices? So when I write about difference and appreciating difference, I have to confront my own reality of struggling myself with the different political choices people make.

And these differences sometimes take years to cause any issues. It might be friends who I went clubbing with in my 20s and 30s, who now talk about not wanting immigrants to move into their village. It reveals differences that were not there in those days of partying. To un-see those things now becomes a difference I struggle to overcome.

Friendship choices

As we progress through life we make choices. Some friends very naturally drop out of our lives and we make new ones. For a long time I struggled with groups of women. I chose to stay away from situations like that with big groups of women. After a difficult school experience in a girl’s school, I sought work in very male-dominated environments and spent time with friends who were men. For a long time, it felt more secure to stay away from women’s groups. As I progress through life now, those groups become easier, as it’s other differences that become more difficult.

So in my exploration of difference I find myself fascinated by the choices we all make in our friendships.

At a recent business networking event, there were questions to prompt discussion. The one I picked up said ‘what do you value most in friends?’ A fabulous question which sparked discussion and debate. Answers ranged from honesty, to trust, to fun and laughter.

So ask yourself, what do you value in your friendships? I would love to know the answers.