Observations and Opinions on 'Friendship'
Oct. 8th, 2021 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arias_hollowThis month's carnival of aros theme is 'Friendship'. I've had a lot of thoughts on the subject, in life and more recently in specific, so I'm going to answer a few of the prompts and possibly go off on some side-tangents.
The first prompt asks about how we define friendship - what does the word bring to mind, and if it differs from other people's definitions. For myself, I've always found the word 'friend' both very simple and very vague. Because it honestly covers a huge range of relationship styles, degrees of closeness, and personal investment. In certain regards, 'friend' can be used to imply only the most basic requirements for functional, semi-regular interactions: someone you reasonably like/treat well and are more familiar with than a stranger or distant acquaintance. 'Casual' friends are friends who usually only meet these requirements, and maybe the addition of occasionally interacting with them in a non-work setting. In this sense, it becomes rude to say someone you see semi-often and don't hate 'isn't your friend'. Amiable classmates and co-workers are also often called 'friends' by default, even if you aren't especially close.
This has sometimes been awkward for me, because I don't instinctively consider casual friends...'friends'. I'll refer to them as such because that's polite and less clunky sounding than always saying 'my acquaintance' or something, but inwardly there's always a feeling of doubt on if I actually want to commit to 'being friends' with them. Because the word 'friend' also applies to a range of closer friendships, which are generally lumped together under categories like 'close friend' or 'Real friend', and its those kinds of relationships I roughly think of first when I consider the term 'friend'. But even that's imperfect, because again - the sheer variety encompassed there. Is that person one you like mostly from familiarity and a few shared activities? Is that person someone you'd feel comfortable discussing your personal life or vulnerabilities with at all, and if so, to what extent? How much effort would you put into helping them with things or making time to spend with them? Regardless of how you answer these questions, there's a pretty high chance that relationship would be considered a 'Real' friendship as long as it was slightly closer or longer lasting than the minimalistic 'casual' friendship.
Commonly in the aro community, 'friendship' can mean any of these things too, but more often can refer to a deeper non-romantic relationship. I've only recently begun to realize how much I might actually fall into the category of 'placing higher expectations on close friends than most of society', but it's true that even 'best' friends, the closest 'normal' form of friendship, have a certain limit to the amount of commitment that's considered acceptable. Originally, the term queerplatonic was specifically about queering the standard for platonic relationships - and while there's been a lot of recent debate over what 'platonic' really means or covers, based on some of the conversations I saw during QPR's original framing, it seemed to be used somewhat interchangeably with 'friendship' at the time.
I won't get into the details here, but as conversations around QPRs (and squishes) changed, it did seem that was a lot more talk of what 'platonic feelings' felt like, what 'queerplatonic' feelings felt like, and so forth. This was actually pretty confusing to me, because it re-framed something I didn't even realize could be framed differently: friendship wasn't defined as much now by structure - what activities are done together, what levels of emotional effort and commitment are involved - but by the specific nature of the 'feelings' involved. Before I had kind of just figured there was 'romantic Feelings', which I lacked, and then there was just....Non-Romantic Feelings/Relationships. I never thought of 'friendship' as having a unique 'feeling' to it, per say. I just thought of it as feeling at least somewhat positively about someone, feeling familiar with them, and Not Having Romantic Feelings for them. And this has been a considerable source of confusion for me, since while I wholeheartedly agree that a relationship is whatever the people involved Decide it is regardless of what it 'looks' like, it sometimes feels like I don't having much of a framework beyond social etiquette and vague, oversimplified terms to guide my own interpersonal relationships.
Regardless, this all means that yes, my own definition of friendship often does differ from others, though I also wish there were either a lot more words for different kinds of friendships, or that it was considered the norm to have 'where do we want to take this relationship/what to we want out of it' conversations more casually and not just with potential romantic partners. I usually define friendship somewhere on the more best friend territory side of 'close friend', but also use the term for people I'm especially familiar with but have slightly more 'muted' feelings for. I've also taken to referring to a lot of friendships that might look romantic-coded or qpr-coded as 'Epic Friendships', because they're deeper or more 'grand scale' than people usually think of even best friends as being, while not necessarily being 'coupled' formally.
This relates pretty directly to another one of the prompts, asking about how one's aromanticism affects the kind of things one wants out of a friendship, the kinds of things they'd like to do together. For myself, I do tend to have slightly muted emotions for periods of time in general, so while I may occasionally have 'friendship feelings' for people I like, I can't easily base a close or epic friendship off of having those All The Time. So instead I do think of the kind of structural things I want, and I do think my lack of romantic attraction and romance repulsion helped shape those ideas. Sharing hobbies and interests is important to me in a friendship, along with sharing core philosophical/moral beliefs. That by itself, along with some feeling of familiarity and basic communication compatibility, is enough for me to consider someone 'a friend' (not a casual friend, or co-worker friend, but A Friend). To really reach Close Friend levels though, I would want to do /lots/ of activities with the person - fun projects, watching shows/playing games together, going out to places together if/when possible, having long conversations. I'd also have to feel like I could talk to them about my struggles and experiences openly, which is honestly the hardest criteria for me to meet with people. This would also increase the feelings of loyalty/commitment I feel for a friendship. Epic Friendship, though, would be like...we SUPPORT each other. Emotionally, financially, however we can. We actually feel excited to spend time with each other, at least a decent bit of the time. And there's definitely effort made to keep up little routines and make time for each other. Most people would reserve that sort of thing for a romantic relationship, or a qpr (and, by the old definition at least, Epic Friendship is an iteration of qpr, on paper), for my aro and probably gray-platonic self, I would just think of that as deep friendship. (That said, there's definitely lots of grey areas between these 'stages' of friendship too)
To wrap up, I just want to briefly touch on some of the less-directly-related-to-my-above-rambling prompts. xD One was if the aro community has specific ideas on friendship - and I'd yes, yes absolutely; dissecting, celebrating, discussing friendship in various ways is a Big part of the community. There are aros who don't seek friendships or have complicated feelings about the term/concept for various reasons, which given the prevalence of friendship as a concept in society and the many ideas conflated with it is a whole conversation on its own. And many other aros feel that friendship means more to them to your average alloromantic, and discuss the way society devalues friendship and non-romantic relationships as a whole. I've always been very interested in these conversations, and am excited to see the kind of changes and developments our communities increasing activism brings about.
Finally, the prompts asked about group friendship, or friendship as community. Naturally, as more people get involved in a group or community, the less 'lose-knit' the 'whole' becomes, but the feeling of community and resources increases. With smaller groups, there's also definitely unique dynamic on is expected of everyone when they're all together compared to what various individual relationships within the group expect of each other. I do think community friendship should be valued more - people who have more finances and resources should share with those who have less just as a matter of course. But currently, even within close groups, while often there grows in-jokes, familiarity, and expectations, it's not been my experiences or my observation in others that friend groups are expected to take care of each other very much. Some amount of emotional support it offered/expected, but it does seem to have a built-in limit. Group Epic Friendship (Found Family?), while somewhat popular in fiction, doesn't seem to have a lot of real-life respect (or at least, people don't generally seem to be looking to start that kind of thing as far as I'm aware).
So there are some of my disjointed musings on friendship! A vague word with a lot of different definitions, but still a phenomenally important concept in all its variety for a lot of people, especially many aromantics. And this ambiguity, while not always a bad thing, is absolutely worth dissecting and analyzing for those of us who want more clear-cut frameworks for navigating interpersonal relationships.
The first prompt asks about how we define friendship - what does the word bring to mind, and if it differs from other people's definitions. For myself, I've always found the word 'friend' both very simple and very vague. Because it honestly covers a huge range of relationship styles, degrees of closeness, and personal investment. In certain regards, 'friend' can be used to imply only the most basic requirements for functional, semi-regular interactions: someone you reasonably like/treat well and are more familiar with than a stranger or distant acquaintance. 'Casual' friends are friends who usually only meet these requirements, and maybe the addition of occasionally interacting with them in a non-work setting. In this sense, it becomes rude to say someone you see semi-often and don't hate 'isn't your friend'. Amiable classmates and co-workers are also often called 'friends' by default, even if you aren't especially close.
This has sometimes been awkward for me, because I don't instinctively consider casual friends...'friends'. I'll refer to them as such because that's polite and less clunky sounding than always saying 'my acquaintance' or something, but inwardly there's always a feeling of doubt on if I actually want to commit to 'being friends' with them. Because the word 'friend' also applies to a range of closer friendships, which are generally lumped together under categories like 'close friend' or 'Real friend', and its those kinds of relationships I roughly think of first when I consider the term 'friend'. But even that's imperfect, because again - the sheer variety encompassed there. Is that person one you like mostly from familiarity and a few shared activities? Is that person someone you'd feel comfortable discussing your personal life or vulnerabilities with at all, and if so, to what extent? How much effort would you put into helping them with things or making time to spend with them? Regardless of how you answer these questions, there's a pretty high chance that relationship would be considered a 'Real' friendship as long as it was slightly closer or longer lasting than the minimalistic 'casual' friendship.
Commonly in the aro community, 'friendship' can mean any of these things too, but more often can refer to a deeper non-romantic relationship. I've only recently begun to realize how much I might actually fall into the category of 'placing higher expectations on close friends than most of society', but it's true that even 'best' friends, the closest 'normal' form of friendship, have a certain limit to the amount of commitment that's considered acceptable. Originally, the term queerplatonic was specifically about queering the standard for platonic relationships - and while there's been a lot of recent debate over what 'platonic' really means or covers, based on some of the conversations I saw during QPR's original framing, it seemed to be used somewhat interchangeably with 'friendship' at the time.
I won't get into the details here, but as conversations around QPRs (and squishes) changed, it did seem that was a lot more talk of what 'platonic feelings' felt like, what 'queerplatonic' feelings felt like, and so forth. This was actually pretty confusing to me, because it re-framed something I didn't even realize could be framed differently: friendship wasn't defined as much now by structure - what activities are done together, what levels of emotional effort and commitment are involved - but by the specific nature of the 'feelings' involved. Before I had kind of just figured there was 'romantic Feelings', which I lacked, and then there was just....Non-Romantic Feelings/Relationships. I never thought of 'friendship' as having a unique 'feeling' to it, per say. I just thought of it as feeling at least somewhat positively about someone, feeling familiar with them, and Not Having Romantic Feelings for them. And this has been a considerable source of confusion for me, since while I wholeheartedly agree that a relationship is whatever the people involved Decide it is regardless of what it 'looks' like, it sometimes feels like I don't having much of a framework beyond social etiquette and vague, oversimplified terms to guide my own interpersonal relationships.
Regardless, this all means that yes, my own definition of friendship often does differ from others, though I also wish there were either a lot more words for different kinds of friendships, or that it was considered the norm to have 'where do we want to take this relationship/what to we want out of it' conversations more casually and not just with potential romantic partners. I usually define friendship somewhere on the more best friend territory side of 'close friend', but also use the term for people I'm especially familiar with but have slightly more 'muted' feelings for. I've also taken to referring to a lot of friendships that might look romantic-coded or qpr-coded as 'Epic Friendships', because they're deeper or more 'grand scale' than people usually think of even best friends as being, while not necessarily being 'coupled' formally.
This relates pretty directly to another one of the prompts, asking about how one's aromanticism affects the kind of things one wants out of a friendship, the kinds of things they'd like to do together. For myself, I do tend to have slightly muted emotions for periods of time in general, so while I may occasionally have 'friendship feelings' for people I like, I can't easily base a close or epic friendship off of having those All The Time. So instead I do think of the kind of structural things I want, and I do think my lack of romantic attraction and romance repulsion helped shape those ideas. Sharing hobbies and interests is important to me in a friendship, along with sharing core philosophical/moral beliefs. That by itself, along with some feeling of familiarity and basic communication compatibility, is enough for me to consider someone 'a friend' (not a casual friend, or co-worker friend, but A Friend). To really reach Close Friend levels though, I would want to do /lots/ of activities with the person - fun projects, watching shows/playing games together, going out to places together if/when possible, having long conversations. I'd also have to feel like I could talk to them about my struggles and experiences openly, which is honestly the hardest criteria for me to meet with people. This would also increase the feelings of loyalty/commitment I feel for a friendship. Epic Friendship, though, would be like...we SUPPORT each other. Emotionally, financially, however we can. We actually feel excited to spend time with each other, at least a decent bit of the time. And there's definitely effort made to keep up little routines and make time for each other. Most people would reserve that sort of thing for a romantic relationship, or a qpr (and, by the old definition at least, Epic Friendship is an iteration of qpr, on paper), for my aro and probably gray-platonic self, I would just think of that as deep friendship. (That said, there's definitely lots of grey areas between these 'stages' of friendship too)
To wrap up, I just want to briefly touch on some of the less-directly-related-to-my-above-rambling prompts. xD One was if the aro community has specific ideas on friendship - and I'd yes, yes absolutely; dissecting, celebrating, discussing friendship in various ways is a Big part of the community. There are aros who don't seek friendships or have complicated feelings about the term/concept for various reasons, which given the prevalence of friendship as a concept in society and the many ideas conflated with it is a whole conversation on its own. And many other aros feel that friendship means more to them to your average alloromantic, and discuss the way society devalues friendship and non-romantic relationships as a whole. I've always been very interested in these conversations, and am excited to see the kind of changes and developments our communities increasing activism brings about.
Finally, the prompts asked about group friendship, or friendship as community. Naturally, as more people get involved in a group or community, the less 'lose-knit' the 'whole' becomes, but the feeling of community and resources increases. With smaller groups, there's also definitely unique dynamic on is expected of everyone when they're all together compared to what various individual relationships within the group expect of each other. I do think community friendship should be valued more - people who have more finances and resources should share with those who have less just as a matter of course. But currently, even within close groups, while often there grows in-jokes, familiarity, and expectations, it's not been my experiences or my observation in others that friend groups are expected to take care of each other very much. Some amount of emotional support it offered/expected, but it does seem to have a built-in limit. Group Epic Friendship (Found Family?), while somewhat popular in fiction, doesn't seem to have a lot of real-life respect (or at least, people don't generally seem to be looking to start that kind of thing as far as I'm aware).
So there are some of my disjointed musings on friendship! A vague word with a lot of different definitions, but still a phenomenally important concept in all its variety for a lot of people, especially many aromantics. And this ambiguity, while not always a bad thing, is absolutely worth dissecting and analyzing for those of us who want more clear-cut frameworks for navigating interpersonal relationships.
