Paulin GNOUMOU
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Redefine love: When friendship becomes our greatest support.
There's a Supreme Court case in the United States that could be mistaken for a sermon. It's the case that recognized that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. Judge Kennedy said, “marriage addresses the universal fear that a lonely person might call and find no one.” he goes on to say that marriage offers care and companionship, and the decision holds that these are basic human needs that everyone should have access to, whether heterosexual or homosexual. But what do these words tell you if you're single? In the United States, around 30% of women over 65 are widows. The reality is that it's unlikely that any of us will have a partner by our side until our last breath. Regardless of whether we're in a relationship now, we need to rely on more than one relationship to support us through our full and unpredictable lives. We need other loved ones. And there's a neglected type of relationship we can turn to: friendship, which can be a more powerful force in our lives. Often, friendship is a happier way of life, a place of refuge when we're overwhelmed by life's many problems. Joe and John have been best friends for decades. When Joe had problems with alcohol and drugs, John helped her into rehab. And then John decided that to support his friend, he too would get sober. Joy cared for her friend Hannah during the latter's six-year battle with ovarian cancer. This included trips to New York, where Hannah received specialized treatment. Joy had trouble sleeping at night in the hospital, because she was too busy keeping watch to make sure her friend's chest was still rising and falling. Some of the friends I spoke to had a friendship that occupied the space usually reserved for a romantic partner. Some had this kind of friendship and a romantic partner. So it's not “either/or” but maybe “both/and”. Talking with these people, I realized that they were at the forefront of friendship, helping us to imagine how much more we could expect from our platonic relationships. Which is true, but another way of looking at it is that they're doing something retro, even ancient. In ancient Rome, friends referred to each other as “half my soul” or “the greatest part of my soul”, language we now use in romantic relationships. From China to Jordan to England, there was a practice called “sworn brotherhood”, where male friends went through a ritual to consider each other brothers. A century or so ago, friends would take portraits like these, their arms around each other, their bodies very close together. What I took from this story is that if we don't limit friendship, it can be central to our lives. But today, not everyone recognizes this. I spoke to a mother who really tried to convince her son to make dating a priority, because she wanted him to find emotional wholeness. And her son replied, “I found it with my platonic life partner.” his best friend, whom he'd known since high school, who'd moved across the country to be near him, to live with him, in fact. The mother said, “I don't understand how you can be partnered with someone you're not romantic with.” an understandable reaction in a culture that sees friendship as the companion to the real hero: romance. We get this message from romantic comedies, from Supreme Court justices, and from public policy. For example, Joy, during the six years she cared for her friend, was not entitled to family medical leave. When Hannah died, Joy was not entitled to bereavement leave, because they were considered unrelated. In our government policies and in the workplace, friendship is invisible. Sometimes this diminishment of friendship comes from without, and sometimes it comes from within. If we can recognize what friendship has the potential to be, and if we can understand that there is more than one kind of loved one, then we can imagine other ways to find love, care and companionship. And we can support those who have these kinds of friendships. So, the mother I was telling you about, she's had a complete change of heart. She now admires the commitment between her son and her son's friend. My wish is that we feel free to share our lives with those we're lucky enough to find, whether that's a spouse, a sibling, or a house full of friends.
By Paulin GNOUMOUabout a year ago in Humans
