On Friendship
Pondering 53 Years on This Earth
One day, when my mother picked me up from pre-K, she found me lying, face down in the grass, as the other four-year-old children walked over me. I was the “bridge” in a game we played.
I’ll pause here, so you can envision the scene.
For years, this was a “funny” family story. Y’all know how Boomer’s sense of humor can be, like haha, and then they were walking on her.
Today, it’s no longer funny. This narrative serves as data for understanding how I’d learned to relate to the first people I’d met outside of my family—friends. As I mentioned in On Mothers and Fathers, parents are important, but who your parents are and how they parent becomes a layered conversation when they are not your biological family. For example, when you’re adopted, your sense of identity is complicated because, no matter what they say, you are not fully a part of your adoptive family. This creates uncertainty about who you are. When you’re adopted, how you relate to people may also be distorted because of how you perceive early relationships or due to a disconnect between you and your adoptive parents.1
For me, this showed up as people pleasing. Like other adoptees, I’d learned how to fake being in relationship as a way to cope with being surrounded by a family who didn’t look or act like me. I can’t pinpoint it, but early on, I figured out that if I do whatever family want, then they will like me and shower me with love, affection, and attention. It is an inherent characteristic many adoptees share. We want to fit in. We want to belong, so we volunteer to be the bridge that folks walk over.
After that incident, I only remember my mother telling me not to let people walk on my back. I don’t recall a conversation about self-worth, friends, or friendship. Subsequently, over the years, I’ve had to independently unlearn relationship patterns. I’ve had to relearn how to select friends, determine how I want to be in friendship with people, and figure out when to release them, all while determining which parts are my personality, as opposed to traits developed in survival mode. Here’s what I’ve found:
“You can make friends with a wall,” someone recently told me. They’re not wrong. After all, I am very outgoing and genuinely interested in other people and what they got going on. I am the person who knows the Lyft driver’s drama by the time I arrive at my destination. However, I’ve learned that just because I vibe with someone, doesn’t mean we’re “friends.” Read about that revelation below, then promise you’ll come back and finish today’s thoughts.
So now, I don’t just call everyone a “friend.” I’ve implemented a bit of a waiting period, the same way people do when they date. I know this may sound elementary, but it’s helped me immensely. I’ve learned that if I wait a sec, people will reveal themselves, and my intuition will guide me in seeing who that person is. Typically, it presents as a niggling feeling, confirmed by their actions. Eventually, these two culminate into a knowing that the other person isn’t really a friend, no matter what they say or do. They may admire me; they may like me; or they may want to simply hang out; however, a friend, they are not. I’ll add that if I must question if someone is my friend, then they probably are not. No need to overthink it.
Someone else once said that I “expect too much from friends.” At first, I disagreed because she was trying to convince me it was okay for our mutuals not to check on me after a major surgery. Even though, her example was inappropriate, reviewing my birth chart showed this to be true. With Venus in the 11th House, I expect friends to be “loyal, supportive, harmonious, and mutually beneficial.”2 Heavy on the mutual beneficial. I prefer symbiosis: I call you; you call me. I check on you; you check on me. If you think you’re going to hang onto me like a barnacle, then our friendship will cease to exist. Furthermore, I loathe superficiality. Either we can talk about something meaningful (i.e., how Ai is changing society; how we’re healing our lives), or we could not talk at all. I have two friends I meet up with once a year. You know what we discussed last time? Stoicism.
Okay, I know that’s a bit far. I don’t expect that level of depth from everyone, but I do hope you get what I’m saying. Friends must be aligned; otherwise, what are we doing?
Finally, I’ve seen people continue to be friends, even when they wanna break up. However, psychologist, Marisa G. Franco says it is natural for friendships to end every seven years or so. And she gives us a tip for how to do so; she suggests asking yourself this question: If I met this person today, would we be friends?3 This is such a simple question if you don’t analyze it, right? Try it right now. Ask yourself this question about a friend; clarity is found in your first response, not the one you want to justify.
Franco says this question will help to elucidate where the friendship is. And in my experience, she’s right. Asking this question helped me to revisit several friendships, and it has supported me in ending them with love and honesty.
Overall, learning what I desire in friendships, as well as how to maintain healthy friendships has been a steep learning curve, but I am happy to report there has been no more walking over me, literally or figuratively.
Roszia, Sharon, and Allison Davis Maxon. Seven Core Issues in Adoption and Permanency: A Comprehensive Guide to Promoting Understanding and Healing in Adoption, Foster Care, Kinship Families and Third Party Reproduction. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
I use The Pattern, the Chani app, and a personal birth chart reader to understand my chart; however, this information is also Google-able.
Marisa G. Franco, PhD. (2022). Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make--and Keep--Friends. National Geographic Books. The Science of Making (and Keeping) Friends (J. Romilini & K. France, Interviewers). (2022, February 28). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://shows.acast.com/everythingisfine/episodes/best-of-navigating-midlife-friendships-with-dr-marisa-franco
I wasn't adopted, but I grew up with similar coping strategies: I was very good at figuring out what people wanted me to be, and then pretending to be that. It took a very long time before I learned who my genuine self was, much less found the courage to show that self to others. In many ways, I still work on that. And I agree completely about friends: not everyone we are friendly with is a friend. A real friend is someone we can count on, who meets our emotional needs, and who both knows and likes are genuine self. And of course, that is what we give them in return, if we wish to truly be their friend. Relationships are work, but worth it, I think.
Even though our childhood experiences differ, I wish I had had the self-love, self-worth conversation with my mom. I wish I had had the conversation with my daughter. I suppose it’s not too late. I feel like I’m finally learning.