Friendship: Asking & Receiving > Giving

 Yes, I did just put a mathematical expression of inequality in the title of this blog.

 I watched a recent video with Simon Sinek and Trevor Noah. It was compelling because it rang so true. There is a crisis of friendship in our world today. Sinek and Noah explained how we put far too much pressure on work and our significant other to fill all of our needs.  It’s crushing and it’s isolating and I agree with what they said in their conversation:  When people create so-called communities around isolation and loneliness it typically turns violent and very bigoted. Men are especially susceptible to these (typically) online gatherings.  Loneliness is one of the biggest dangers of our time and true, loving, affectionate and vulnerable friendship is free, in person, and exactly opposite the trend right now. 

But, how? How do we engage friendship? How do we build it and how do we sustain it? It sure seems like a lot of pressure to go out and “make a friend”. The brilliance of what Sinek and Noah discussed was so simple: ask for support when you need it, when you feel lonely, when you are down, and when you are ticked off. This vulnerability, simplicity, and emotional clarity is pure gold. But we tend to wave it off. They’re only risky and uncomfortable as long as we resist them. The chances are very high that if we share our hurt, big feelings, and or struggle with two or three people, at least one of them will shine through, rise up, and be happy to receive our story without disclaiming it, without gaslighting us, without unsolicited advice, and they will be all too happy to do so!  So, asking and receiving support are far greater than feeling the pressure to give support. Asking for support requires no apps and requires no screen time. It requires a small investment of risk and being honest. True, there is some discomfort in being honest about what makes us unhappy, uncomfortable, angry, worried, or scared. But, as the saying goes, honesty is the best policy. Unfortunately, we think that means if we are more type A, we have to give unsolicited advice or feedback, or if we are more type B, share our faults too widely. We need to offload some burden and share a little bit of that burden with someone that we think we might be able to trust. If we’re hesitating, we can simply ask, “No pressure, I have some deeper stuff to share with you. Do you think you might be in a position to just listen? I don’t think I need advice. I just need you to listen.“ That’s pretty easy… and that’s if we do NOT yet trust them. But if we DO trust them, we should probably just lead by saying, “I trust you man, and I need to get something heavy off my chest. “ Let’s be more honest and ask for more help. In annoying little things and when we are deeply frustrated. Let’s invest more in our friends and ask for more support.