Eric Lund
Eric Lund
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

Community is very different from the kind of friendship described in the original post. Community is about people working and living together around some kind of mutual interest, whether it be geographical proximity, shared values, shared challenges, shared goals, or whatever. There can be community, relationship and even deep commitment to others without “friendship” in the sense of one-on-one give and take described in the post. In fact, in my experience, the exclusivity of one-on-one “friendship” often erodes and fractures community.

While I have some trouble with the sweeping assertions of the original post, I have to agree with the basic thrust of the argument: when friendship becomes some kind of mutual admiration / aid agreement, it becomes harmful. The image that comes to mind is two people in free-fall, each trying to help the other by pushing the other up. This achieves nothing. It is just a frantic waste of energy with only one possible outcome.

I have real friends. I treasure those relationships because they are rare and beautiful. I don’t collect them. They either happen or they do not. I also don’t obsess about them. To me an important mark of friendship is that, when we are together, the conversation picks up where it left off, even if we haven’t been together for years. We can agree or disagree, sometimes violently, but we trust each other and we complement each other in some way. The friendship survives all of this, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, maybe it wasn’t a friendship to begin with, or maybe our respective circumstances changed. Life is complicated.

I don’t see narcissism, conceit or selfishness in the original post. I see honesty, and I see anger at the shallowness of what passes for friendship. When I read that I am sad, not for the author, but for a society in which friendship has become primarily transactional and codependent. That is where the true narcissism and selfishness lie.

    Eric Lund

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    Eric Lund

    Jewish software developer with decades of experience, an English degree, an open mind, and an interest in almost everything — let’s talk!