Friendship

     I had lunch today with an old friend/business colleague who I've known now for almost 30 years.  Over these many years, we've fallen out of touch for long stretches at a time, but then always seem to find each other and reconnect again.  Over the past year or two, we've tried to meet for lunch every 6 months or so; and it's amazing how easy it is to pick up right where we left off.

     I had reached out to her a few weeks ago to schedule today's lunch as it had been a number of months since we had spoken.  While it seems like I'm the one doing most of the "reaching out" for so many of my friends, the effort proves to be well worth it every single time.  As I've written about many times, these get-togethers are where relationships are really deepened.

     During today's lunch, I also had the opportunity to provide some useful feedback to my friend regarding some opportunities she was exploring.  I enjoy playing the role of "sounding board" and seem to have a knack for helping people sort out issues in a way that provides them with some important insight and clarity.  It's a pleasure to use that skill to help people.

     I've often wished that I had a more tangible skill that I could employ on behalf of people.  I hear about doctors going overseas and donating time to treat sick children on humanitarian mission trips.  Or I hear about people who help their friends and neighbors build an addition or fix a leak.  To be honest, I'm pretty useless on most of these tasks and doing virtually anything with my hands.  My biggest skill tends to be my ability to bring clarity of thought to situations, a skill not often identified as critical to help people in developing nations.  Nonetheless, I do take pleasure in being able to help someone like I did today.  I suppose we all tend to overlook or under-appreciate the things that come most easily to us.

Deepening Relationships

     Last night I had a wonderful dinner in Virginia with a college friend who I hadn't seen in nearly 30 years.  Tonight I had dinner in North Carolina with a relatively new friend who I only met several months ago.  What was similar about these visits and why were they important?  Let me try to explain.

     Another relatively new friend asked me in an e-mail the other day if I would share my perspective on keeping in touch with people long-term, as it appeared to her that I put forth a good deal of effort in this regard.  This got me thinking more about why I do this, and why I enjoy and value it.

     Over the years, I've found that I'm not very good at, nor do I enjoy, the mostly meaningless idle chit chat that so often gets passed off as a relationship.  Seeing people at a large party where it's too loud or uncomfortable to do much more than exchange pleasantries is never very satisfying for me.  I'm not even very patient about the silly conversations when people ask things like, "All ready for the holidays?", or "How was your weekend?", or "It's not the heat, it's the humidity."  Even when they ask about the kids, they're usually not listening and more often seem to be saying something just to say something.

     I much prefer to spend what I would consider to be "quality time" with someone, typically one-on-one.  This gives me a chance to ask more probing, insightful questions, and to really listen to and understand their answers, and similarly, it gives me a chance to share much more of myself with them on a far deeper level.  I find the best way to do this is typically over lunch or dinner, not with a large group of people.  When it's just me and the other person, sitting directly across from each other, it's almost hard not to engage in more meaningful dialogue since there's nothing to distract us.  And as we share more and more of ourselves with each other, and we really get to know about each other, the relationship naturally deepens.

     Since most of us tend to fill our days with busy-ness and there's hardly a free moment, it takes intentional effort in order to schedule meaningful time with each other.  Unfortunately, most people don't seem to take on that challenge.  They let inertia take over and one day simply flows into the next, mostly filled with cursory exchanges, all the while proclaiming that relationships are what matter the most in life.

     In contrast, I try to make that effort to break out of the inertia of my "normal" routine and I make specific arrangements to connect with people one-on-one.  I have some friends at home who I will call from time to time and go to lunch with them.  We have such rich and meaningful conversations and so enjoy each other's company.  I've done several of these just in the last few weeks and have several more coming up in the next few weeks.  As I've written about in many blogs, it seems like I know people in most major cities.  When I'm going to be in their area, I make the effort to call or write to them and suggest we get together, even if I haven't seen them in 30 years (that just makes it even more fun!)  Just in the past year I've spent quality time with new and old friends in Minneapolis, Phoenix, Houston, Birmingham, Tampa, Northern Virginia, Chicago, Atlanta, Williamsburg, and Cleveland, just to name a few.  And in the next 2-3 months I've already arranged to meet friends I know in Palm Beach, Detroit, Columbia, Charleston, Phoenix, Buffalo, Tampa, and Northern Virginia again.

     I get such satisfaction and enjoyment from these relationships (and hopefully these people do as well!).  I find them enriching, nourishing, and thought-provoking.  But here's the thing:  Virtually none of them would happen if I didn't make the effort.  And this is as true for old friends as it is for new ones.  Old friends can easily disappear from our lives if we don't make the effort to see each other.  And new friends don't happen much if we don't go out on a limb and invest in each other.  I can think of a number of new friends I have, whose relationship I treasure, that wouldn't have happened if I didn't reach out and choose to visit them, even when we didn't yet know each other that well.  

     In a world of short attention spans, where superficiality rules, and where we become obsessed with our iPads and smartphones, I'm intentionally choosing to invest in relationships.  In creating meaningful new ones, and in renewing and deepening old ones.

Keeping In Touch

     Most people, it seems, lead fairly busy lives with lots of activities crammed into the 24 hours with which we all have to work. With all that we have on our plates, it's not always easy to stay in touch with people who we care about or who we enjoy being with.  Today, I reached out to two such people.  One I called to catch up, and the other I reached out to schedule a lunch.

     While paradoxically I'm not always great with this when it comes to my family, I'm pretty good about it when it comes to friends.  I'm usually the one making the effort to connect with friends both locally and all over the country.  Through all my contacts over the years, I seem to know someone in nearly every major city, it seems.  And just about every time I travel (which has been a lot this year), I find someone I know to have dinner with or to stay with.  Sometimes it's an old HS or college friend, sometimes a business associate, and sometimes even a person I met on a trip or vacation.  I find that I enjoy the process of connecting and reconnecting with people, and they always seem glad that I called to arrange it.

     Like with most things, we all have excuses for why we haven't stayed in touch with people we care about.  And like most things as well, they really are just that - excuses.  We all seem to find the time for the things that are most important to us.  I find that building (and sometimes, resuming) relationships with a myriad of friends adds an enriching element to my life.  And while it might be nice if I didn't usually have to be the one to initiate the effort, I accept that as the price for creating the kind of life I want to have.

Making the Effort for Friends

     Given the busy lives that most of us lead, it's easy to lose touch with friends.  It takes energy and effort to carve out time to connect with people, whether by phone, in writing, or in person.  Today I made the effort to expand upon my relationship with two different old and special friends.

     Back in 1995, I participated in an Outward Bound wilderness adventure in the mountains of Montana.  It was an amazing trip and I got to know a great group of people from around the country.  One of those people was a guy who I've spoken with by phone every few years since then but have never again seen.  We recently reconnected through LinkedIn, and when I learned that he had moved to the San Franscisco area, I agreed to visit him on my travels.  Since I was on a vacation in the western part of the country, I did just that.  Though we haven't seen each other in nearly 17 years, it's been great to be together.  Certainly it would have been much easier to stay in my normal routines and let the relationship fade away; but I'm continually reminded of how enriching these relationships are . . . if I make the time to cultivate and nurture them.

     The second half of this story is about another old friend who I met in 1989.  That summer, our local YMCA was bringing in a group of international students to be camp counselors and they needed housing.  My wife and I agreed to be a host family and we had the pleasure of getting to know a great 18-year old kid from Sweden.  He ended up coming back to be with us again the next summer, and we've been good friends since then, even taking a family vacation to visit him in Stockholm a number of years ago.

     This morning, I noticed that this friend had a Facebook post noting that he was in San Francisco at a conference.  Amazed at the coincidence that we were both in the same city, I found a way to contact him and then arranged to meet him at his hotel.  It was so good to be with him again and to rekindle our long friendship.

     These relationships, and others like them do take effort.  Taking the time to call an old college friend, tracking down someone I haven't seen in years, or arranging the logistics to visit someone, takes work.  It's always easier not to make the effort.  Yet, my life is better for having friends like these, and I'd like to think that theirs is as well.