I hardly woke up when my dentist, with whom I never spoke on the phone, called me to find out how I felt. He told me that he thought of me for a week and kept trying to call me to have my news. There was such an empathy in this short and simple communication, such tenderness and affection….
I was touched by his care for me. He is not a friend, not somebody who drops in for a coffee, as so many people do, he is not even my dentist for a long time. He is somebody I only met in his dentistry cabinet, three or four time only, and who had the time and felt that he had to have news from me. He worried for me. He wanted to give me support.
And his very simple and natural call made my day look good. Even now, late at night, I keep thinking about his warm tone of voice. His wish for the best for me. I am impressed. I am absolutely astonished.
Friends, all friends of mine, didn’t find in themselves the desire to give me courage and strength. They solved the problem by saying that I am a strong person and therefore everything should be OK.
This brings me back to the subject of friends. What is the definition of friendship?
According to certain definitions, the values that are to be found in friendship are:
- The tendency to desire what is best for the other;
- Sympathy and empathy;
- Mutual understanding and compassion;
- Trust (being able to tell the truth without the fear of being judged);
- Reciprocity (a relationship based on equal give and take).
So, now, if one starts reading the above points and looks at one’s friends, will one have any friends left?
I think that most friendships are real friendships only at a given moment in time. The naive part in us wants to believe in a lifetime friendship.
Out of experience I know that money kills friendships. It kills it softly and slowly. It takes years for money to kill a friendship, sometimes more than a few years but, the in the constant fighting for life, friendship is in such an agony that the friends don’t have the energy to keep it alive anymore.
When I say money, I don’t mean sordid stories about money stolen or borrowed. I means simply that in the beginning of the friendship the financial situation of the two friends is more or less equal. They go out together, they have fun together, they eat together, they may even spend holidays together.
Some years later, one of the friends has a very good job, makes a successful career, earns a lot of money. I call this friend, friend A. The other friend has an uneven income with ups and downs, but his income can be called average and not very good as such. This is friend B.
At this point in time friend A wants to eat in an expensive restaurant, whilst for friend B this is a difficult task. Here we have the 2 typical situations:
- Friend A pays the meal for friend B
- Friend B makes a financial effort to pay for himself, just to spend the time with friend A
This can go on for a while, but not for very long. As time goes by things get even more complicated. Friend A can afford plane tickets to go on holidays overseas whereas friend B cannot. So, they can no longer make holiday plans together. They can only be friends at home, when I say at home, I mean really at home without a lot of going to the theater, opera or restaurant.
This brings the friendship to a stand point:
- Friend A wants to see Traviata in Opera Garnier
- Friend B cannot afford the trip + the opera ticket.
- Friend A wants to go on holidays in Las Vegas
- Friend B cannot afford it.
And so on, and so on.
So money starts killing the friendship. For a while the friendship lingers… Friend A and Friend B can still meet every now and then, and talk. They have subjects in common. But even the subjects are no longer so much in common. Friend A becomes more and more egocentric due to his success. He starts finding that friend B makes no progress in his life. Friend B starts finding friend A cold and distant. He can no longer share his joy, coming mainly from his reading and not his experience with Friend A who has no time to read anymore (too busy making money and enjoying what they can buy for him).
The gap is there. The friendship is in agony.
Friend A can no longer with the best for friend B since he is too surprised that friend B didn’t do better in all these years. Sympathy and empathy can no longer work. Friend B looks nostalgically back at the time when he used to be necessary for friend A. Friend A cannot have an empathy with friend B. Friend B cannot have sympathy for the way friend A.
The friendship is agonizing more and more.
Friend B can no longer tell everything to friend A without the fear of being judged. He feels the judgement in the look in the eyes of friend A. The judgement and the start of indifference.
At this point the give and take doesn’t exist anymore. Friend A cannot give time (too busy working) and friend B cannot give money.
In the name of friendship, friend A can, at most once, give some money to friend B, who feels the severe judgement. Friend B could give affection, time, tenderness, but this is no longer something that interests friend A.
The gap is huge.
Friend A feels betrayed because he had to give money.
Friend B feels betrayed because his tenderness and knowledge are no longer needed.
And the friendship? Where is the friendship?
Rolling on the floor, agonizing in huge pain, wondering when death will follow.
So money kills friendship. Slowly and inevitably. It puts a gap, a larger and larger gap between friends.
So much more I was pleasantly surprised by this morning’s telephone call. There are people, not friends, simply persons who can care about me.
I am happy and astonished.
