When we're not hiring friends
Nicole recently posted a great series on hospitality over here (that is the link to all the posts in one). It seems to me that the bible makes a command to "practice hospitality" as an end in itself, with that being a good thing. It doesn't say "practice hospitality in order to ..." and we are even instructed to entertain strangers, whether we'll ever see them again or not. However, implicit in most people practising hospitality is perhaps some element of relationship - of beginning or deepening one - but it appears that it doesn't need to be so (though it's a little hard to avoid relationship with house guests).
However, the thing I have been thinking about lately is more along the lines of cultivating friendship. One of the things I have personally struggled with since I moved to Sydney is making real, genuine friends. I think I am reasonably friendly, and I have worked on that in the past (and after three years of taking volunteers on field trips in North Queensland, when I moved to Toowoomba the minister of the church there remarked, after some observation, "you could hold a conversation with a gate post", and began to send off to talk to new people, which surprised and amused me, because it was only necessary practice that made me thus) and I turn up to just about everything. And I think other people are reasonably friendly, and many have been ministry-minded and made an effort and been hospitable, and attempted to catch up with me on occasion, and I have greatly appreciated that. And I do have friends. I have been to weddings and birthdays and engagement parties and so forth.
The problem I'm finding seems to be that people are actually full-up when it comes to CLOSE friendships; the sort whom you might call during the week to chat about anything and everything, the sort you might turn to when there's a real problem. They've got their summer-beach-holiday friends, because they've been going to that beach with them for the last five years, they've got their Christmas-tradition friends, they're still in close with that crowd from University days. They just don't need any more of THOSE sort of relationships. And I have felt that. It appears it's just part of being the age I was when I moved to Sydney. And this is not my unique observation or experience. Seinfeld has turned the phenomena into stand-up, because it's universal enough that people can relate and laugh (and I think I owe a long-ago reference to this Seinfeld moment to a conversation with Andrew Nixon along these lines). This is how Seinfeld sees it, from the Boyfriend 1 episode (incidentally, you can read all the Seinfeld scripts at this site - hours of amusement - I have never been a dedicated Seinfeld watcher, but more's the pity):
When you're in your thirties it's very hard to make a new friend. Whatever the group is that you've got now that's who you're going with. You're not interviewing, you're not looking at any new people, you're not interested in seeing any applications. They don't know the places. They don't know the food. They don't know the activities. If I meet a guy in a club on the gym or someplace, I'm sure you're a very nice person, you seem to have a lot of potential, but we're just not hiring right now. Of course when you're a kid, you can be friends with anybody. Remember when you were a little kid what were the qualifications? If someone's in front of my house NOW, that's my friend, they're my friend. That's it. Are you a grown up.? No. Great! Come on in. Jump up and down on my bed. And if you have anything in common at all, You like Cherry Soda? I like Cherry Soda! We'll be best friends!
And I can totally understand and relate to it - and laugh. I am one of the worst of culprits myself. I am just, by nature, one of those two-or-three-bosom-friends kind of people, not a three-dozen-acquaintances kind of person (which is perhaps why I have felt myself really starting to suffer for the lack of them). And there are times when I just long to spend time with old or close friends, and have them all to myself and not have to share them with people new on the scene (and I hear the self-centredness!). Furthermore, social research always proves that most people CAN only have so many close friends, that we are just not capable of sustaining more than a handful. So, I have been thinking about how as Christians we might deal with this phenomenon. Or is it even something to be "dealt with"? Should we just accept the reality of putting the "not hiring" sign out, because we all just can't take on any more deeper friendships, and leave others to a Sunday lunch rotation? Is it only those of us who find ourselves in our thirties without close friends who even notice or care? (Though I would expect that in today's world a good many people are going to move location during their thirties, and find themselves faced with the "not hiring" phenomenon. Perhaps that's when we just need to find the other movers who are currently taking applications.) I won't post any more thoughts now (I actually don't have so many yet!) as this post is long enough, but I'd be interested in others' thoughts or experiences.