The trouble with being friends (with everyone)

Dear TTB

I have always thought that you can be good friends with guys - without having dubious intentions or ulterior motives. It is good to know that you have friends who are like brothers to you and who will look out for you - and just generally be your friend. But there's a catch - sometimes this "brother" person gets the wrong idea - and like someone from the deep south y'all, who plays hillbilly tunes on his banjo - likes you in a way a brother definitely shouldn't. Obviously this doesn't always happen but when it does, it comes as a nasty shock to your slightly-(maybe)-naive self. It is not so much the fact of the context of that person's affections for you changing. Rather, it is because you feel you have let someone down by not sharing the sentiment and perhaps even worse - you've given them the mistaken impression that you might want them to feel this way about you.

So what is the answer? Surely you can't avoid all friendships with guys like some nun in a high-walled convent? If you have friendships with guys who are naturally kind and caring towards all of their friends, it is really difficult to tell if it is brotherly love or more like "Ok, no more one-on-one time with you..." It is also really lame to say to someone who is, in their opinion, definitely just your friend: "so, what are we, like just um friends?" Blind. This could also come across as quite arrogant and could maximise the awkwardness factor. But when you notice that someone seems to like your company and wants to spend time with you - all still in the "friend" context as far as you know - is it up to you to avoid situations like these if you sense a vibe* (of a confusing variety)? There's also the possibility that people misconceive your care and friendliness as a sign of interest which totally messes up things because that makes guys and girls paranoid to care about one another in case someone gets the wrong idea.

The last thing you want is a rigid little set of how-to's. Legalism is so last season. I definitely don't think Jesus went around being all PC with a set of rules he meticulously followed. Hopefully you have some thoughts on the issue?

Thank you.
From Person-who-just-wants-to-be-friends (with everyone)

Dear Person-who-just-wants-to-be-friends (with everyone)

Now, there is a BIG question. There is so much and yet so little to be said on this subject. Relationships in church/Christian circles are always a tad more complex. The reasons being of course, for good reason: people have a desire to honour God and want to “guard their hearts” (to use a phrase right out of Song of Songs) and be pure in their interactions with each other. All good principles that I am well in agreement with but the complications arise when handbags and briefcases are in serious lack of some Emotional Intelligence. But I guess that’s why TTB is here to give a helping hand! First thing we need to establish is that there is no set of rules for dating in the Bible. (Which is just really unhelpful.) But God in his wisdom intended it that way so that men and women would seek him. Or else, what’s a heaven for? (To quote and unrelated excerpt of a poem.) God does say give us some clear guidelines for marriage and wow, am I happy for that! And perhaps people should be more focused on what the Bible says about marriage as opposed to working out how best to go about dating or “courting” to use a bit of Christianese. (This is all semantics of course, but don’t get me started on that…)

Nonetheless, church folk do try their very best to work out a “system” or perhaps a set of rules that they can stick to, to make dating work for them. The worse kind of legalism in my mind… So, I agree, legalism is out and obedience is in. People need to stick to finding God, reading His word and being obedient to it. Finished and klaar. Easy, hey? Unfortunately not because people make mistakes and are imperfect and we have to just live in forgiveness of that since we are certainly imperfect, every one of us. I have noticed two concepts that Christian singletons seem to confuse: guarding your heart and loving your neighbour. They think that being friends with everyone (particularly those of the opposite sex) means that they have the whole loving their neighbour thing waxed and then they try their level best to “guard their hearts” by constantly assessing every friendship that comes their way making sure that they are guarding everyone else’s hearts. (Yes, that’s where this whole paranoia of “does he/she like me” stems from. Of course TTB does have a simple solution to this: DIRECT COMMUNICATION. But since she is aware that some folks aren’t so keen on this ultra confrontational philosophy AND WILL TAKE NO NOTICE OF HER she will move on to other justifiable but NOT NEARLY AS SUCCESSFUL ways of dealing with this.) Anyway, this begs the question, what does it mean to guard YOUR heart? Well it means just that. You are responsible for your emotions. Not anyone else’s. (Of course I am not suggesting you flirt with all and sundry and then happily sit back and say: “Sorry for you. I am so not into you. And by the way, you should be guarding your own damn heart so don’t blame my hotness for you falling in love with me.”)

So you see. There are some very complex vibes attached to being single and Christian... So what am I getting at? TTB reckons you can still love your neighbour without being friends with every single person in your church. My thoughts are that trying to be friends with everyone is a hopeless cause. Trying to be friendly with everyone might be more attainable and even that might be a stretch. But rest assured, I don’t think you need to join the cloister around the corner! I agree that you should be friendly and kind to everyone and if all possessed a little EI and really did guard their own hearts then there wouldn’t be much of a problem. Alas, this is not the case. So what do you do? Firstly, I still maintain that girls and guys can’t be friends. And now you’re thinking in true Princess Diaries style: “Shut up!” But I will stand my ground on this one. Where there is an unattached male and an unattached female in a 5 metre radius of each other: one or the other (or maybe both) are considering whether “this could be love, love, love”. Of course there are things that people do that wreck havoc and cause people to jump to this conclusion more readily – texting, emailing and being intentional about inviting people to things. So, I would say that you keep those things to a minimum in your friendships with the opposite sex. And hang out in a more general way. There’s always a safety in numbers.

I do believe in having briefcase acquaintances – briefcases you are friendly with but you don’t necessarily hang out with all the time. They don’t need to know all your deep, dark secrets – keep conversations civil, friendly and light-hearted. You might be accused of being shallow, but that’s just too bad. Better shallow than in Bermuda. In fact loving your neighbour sometimes means that you don’t create unrealistic expectations in a friendship that is never going to go anywhere. So, the truth is you’re only going to end up marrying one person (hopefully, I mean polygamy is just a nightmare – imagine having more than one husby to look after? Nightmare, nightmare.) and once you’re hitched you’re not going to be friends with all these other guys. I mean like real “friends”. So then I say, why on earth start being “friends” with them in the first place? (See the post below for more of an exposition on this subject.)

I know that there are certain briefcases who I am friendly with who I consider “safe”. Boundaries are so very clear – they know and I know where we are at. We ain’t walking down that aisle. Ever. These briefcases tend to have a higher EI than most and are also more likely to tell you straight when they are sensing some vibes. And you also feel the liberty to keep lines of communication very open in this regard. There isn’t that awkwardness. Do you know what I mean? I think those are the briefcases who you MAY be able to have a truly brother-sister relationship where you can rely on them to watch out for you. But even then I wouldn’t push the envelope and I would still be cautious about spending too much time together, texting, emailing and facebooking etc. I mean, really, social networking has ruined our lives. Dating has just become that much more complex with all these forms of media interactions to be aware of. Makes me tired just thinking about it…

As Bill Cosby so wisely said, “I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” “And I think that’s what people often try to do in these circles. Being friends with everyone is a nice sentiment but it comes at a price and it may mean that if you’re a particularly lovely and hot handbag (as I am sure you are) you will often get into the position of having Brother Briefcase wanting to sail off to distant shores with your heart. So it’s a call you’re going to have to make. Unfortunately there’s a cost either way. You can cease being friends with briefcases and that may mean it creates some awkwardness and people may not understand you. Also, you may not have much of a social life. The upside being that you don’t run into trouble with Brother Briefcase. Or you carry on being a social butterfly and be friends with everyone and run the risk that you may have to set the record straight with a few Brother Briefcases along the way. There’s just no way of having your cake and eating it. Good luck!

Yours sincerely
TTB