Is that a greeting? I arrived on time, although you are not Barack or Hugo, or sister Sonja for that matter...
My dear comrade, it is a simple and honest question.
We finally agreed to meet today after nearly a month of feet dragging on your part.
You didn't have to come, though.
¡Madre mía! We set up an appointment, but you did not want me to come?
Comrade, I am glad that you came, but I wouldn't go to your house and pound on the door in case you failed to show up.
I came because... We're friends, aren't we?
It is that question which has been bothering me. Why are we friends?
That one... Aren't we stuck with each other in a way?
The give-and-take elements in relationships have come to my mind more often than I like lately.
What did you---or I---do to make myself feel obliged to come here?
I do not wish to claim that all of my friends have the explicit intentions to benefit from keeping me as a friend. There are instances when I sense their true concern for me.
That statement sounds rather weak.
It does to me as well. In too many cases, I cannot dispel the idea that I serve some purpose in their lives.
I thought that is how friendships should be.
What I call 'some purpose' includes all sorts of things. For example, I know that some people like being seen with me.
Really? Do they work for a circus or a You-Wouldn't-Believe-It museum?
It's just that there are too many sloppy dressers around that if you pay a nano second of attention to what you wear, you are more or less a winner.
That says something about your living environment rather than you... If they don't work for a circus or the like and still want to be seen with you, isn't it because your allure is rather off the mainstream?
Some keep me on their friends' lists just because there are not many who were born in that odd corner of the world.
What is there to complain? You are contributing to diversity.
To some, I am a little lamb to be saved, and that is why they like me.
Proselytizing? I see that they hardly have any clue about you.
There are some others who like me because I always share all costs incurred during an outing.
What's wrong with that?
Others like me because I let them grab the bill.
A patronizing type can be useful, though.
Some others think I am worse off than they are in all aspects of life, and that is why they like me.
There isn't anyone who likes you because you always take out your wallet before s/he does? ... By the way, we do like some people who are superior in just about everything.
That doesn't happen unless it is a person who is distinguished for talent that we value. As Seneca the Younger said, "[E]nvy operates on what is at hand, but we can more openly admire things from a distance."
It is easier to be fond of a movie star than an acquaintance who has it all and whom you have the opportunities to see in person.
The funny thing is that the acquaintance usually has much less than the movie star, but we tend to harbor jealousy for the former and admiration for the latter. I have had analogous experiences in language classes, especially at the beginner's level.
Why beginner's level?
The student body would contain so many with no linguistic aptitude, and they would drop out before reaching advanced levels.
Whereas you would go to higher levels and never see them again in the same class---is this what you mean?
They would hate me with passion!
Comrade, that is quite a novel way of bragging.
But it's true! It made no sense, because there are millions of people in this entire universe who have studied and become fluent in Klingon, and my classmates were not jealous about them. They admired the fluent speakers, but hated me.
Are you sure it was all about language skills?
Never mind the native Klingon speakers; they, too, were off limits.
If their rotten command of the language was making your classmates feel nasty, they should have hated the ones with the most agility in that language. But instead, they turned to the fluent speakers with dreamy, starry eyes, and to you with angry, square ones... Are you sure it was about foreign languages alone?
Should I say that my classmates in any subject hated me, because I am a polymath?
And you have been preaching us about modesty!
It was just a rhetorical question, comrade. Getting back to the discussion of what constitutes a friendship, it is not that I constantly scrutinize each relationship.
Am I supposed to believe so after this discussion?
I don't devise a strategy every time I see a friend. It's just that sometimes what they say or do makes me realize why they like me.
Are you sure they don't hate you?
An ideal friendship is about two people caring about each other, not about filling the void in your world map of friends or taking advantage of her/his attributes.
Don't you think that there is give and take element in any relationship?
My view is that when the relationship is satisfactory to both parties, they don't engage themselves in such calculations. Suppose a friend that you really value asks you for a favor, you wouldn't think twice about agreeing to it.
Whereas if it were a Class-B friend, you start listing all the things you have already done for her/him?
"I walked her dog for three weeks when a very important project was due. I visited her grandmother in the hospital at her request although I barely knew her. I have tried to remember her favorite brand of tissue..."
"And now she's asking me to attend her cousin's wedding on the opposite side of the globe and that under the guise of her lover, because she doesn't want to be grilled by her relatives why she is still single!"
If you genuinely value someone and the relationship you have with her/him, you derive enough satisfaction from your action for her/him alone and do not think about what s/he could do for you in return.
For Claude, I would gladly go to the Amazon and collect information on his behalf. I know that such trips have become difficult for him, especially since November last year.
It may have become easier, we never know. Anyway, do you think he would reciprocate your action? If yes, I'd say that you and Claude are very good friends, but I think we can safely say that the answer is no.
Lacking reciprocity, it's not a good friendship, but just one-sided admiration, you mean?
Just as we wouldn't make a list of what we did for a very good friend, we wouldn't itemize what we like about that person. We could, but it would look rather absurd and false. The same holds for a lover.
It's her/him as a whole... I don't think it immoral that I take good care of the bushes that separate my house and the neighbors' in the hope that they would reciprocate the gesture.
I don't either. What I would say is that they are your neighbors, perhaps good neighbors, but not good friends.
I can't be good friends with everyone, though.
Luckily, you are not running for any kind of political post. My point is that true friendships are rare. What puzzles me is that many people do not seem to care whether friendships are genuine or not.
If genuine friendships are rare, why should you examine your set of friends only to find out that most are based on give-and-take?
We are bound for disappointment if we do not recognize that fact. Many of the frictions among people that I witness are based on the illusion that the relationships are altruistic, much more so than they could be.
But if we act wisely from the accounting department's point of view, we would be overly shrewd and unpleasantly cunning, don't you think?
For the manipulative ones, that is the ideal.
Although it is inevitable that most relationships are based on business-like considerations, we should not act so as to make use of that fact, because that would push us more in that direction. Is this our conclusion?
The acknowledgment of that nature would make relationships launch on a downward spiral. On the other hand, such considerations would encourage you to be nice to a person that you cannot have fond feelings for.
It's useful, then.
A condition has to be met: s/he would reciprocate your good-willed actions.
In sum, while most friendships are not pretty under the surface, we should not think about it too often, because if we do, it would negatively affect the nice cover. Oftentimes, the pretty cover is all there is to it. If friendship of any kind is inconceivable, it's best to think the relationship as business.
That is life, it seems... I find it interesting that if the friendship is a very good one, I wouldn't hear lines such as, "That's what friends are for," "I meant it well," etc., from that friend.
Your friend does not need to explain that s/he is a nice and kind person, either.
All is natural, and there lies the pitfall.
A pitfall of yours, again?
When something is very natural, we take it for granted. As for good relationships, we often fail to appreciate them and do not realize their value until they are lost for some reason.
A good relationship lost for some reason? It's impossible by definition.
Ach, if only good reasons prevailed in this world!
Not just any good reason, but yours, right?
My reasons are good, all of them, all the time.
Okay, okay, let's just say that you're not a verificationist...
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