Friendship - its place in our lives
From Peoplebrokers
Friends don’t have to last for life but they will help you live longer.
ANABEL DEAN reports for The Sydney Morning Herald
IN TIMES of need, when our own resources leave us wanting, we can buy help, turn to a counsellor, or seek the support of someone dose. With a friend at hand, confidences can readily and .easily be shared, shelter provided, disappointments acknowledged and solutions sought.
Perhaps more importantly, if American medical researchers are to be believed, friends are powerful medicine against ill health.
A 1991 study which compared death rates in people with strong and weak social networks found that developing good social support enhanced health as much as giving up smoking. People with good support lived longer, were less likely to become sick and recovered more quickly from illness.
The study concluded that practical support – a friend ready to dole out desperately needed cash or look after the children – would reduce stress. A report in The New York Times earlier this year claimed that those who had friends to rely on for affirmation, empathy, advice, affection and assistance were more likely to survive health challenges such as heart attacks and major surgery, and were less likely to develop diseases like cancer and respiratory infections.
In yet another study, published by The Journal of the American Medical Association, those who lacked a spouse or confidant were three times more likely to die within five years of diagnosis than were patients who were married or had a close friend.
In the complex and highly mobile existence that many of us lead, however, friendships are often hard to make and even harder to keep. Miss Christine Kaine, founder of "Activity Network", a service that assists people to meet and share in social interests, suggests that cities create divisions.
"People don't find it easy to meet their sort of people so they gravitate to a few work associates, a few friends, and perhaps a neighbour or two, and then they wonder what is wrong with them. They’re not exposed to enough situations to make the friendships which give them the self-esteem they need. Life is becoming so diverse that most people need a range of friends to fulfil all their needs. Rather than having a couple of close friends that they can depend upon for all their needs, they should try to spread the load," Miss Kaine says.
Mrs Marjorie Everist, a counsellor with Unifam, says friendships take effort. "Friendships are like marriages. If you want them to work, you have got to work at them. They must be nurtured and cannot be taken for granted."
Like marriage, even strong friend-ships will falter as they become emotionally or physically draining, when one party becomes overly clingy or grows in another direction.
"We all change, we all strike up friendships that work for a while but if we don’t grow together, the need for the friendship begins to diminish," says Miss Kaine. "If you look at a friendship as having a third personality, formed by the two people – a change in one person changes the nature of the personality."
It’s important to let friendships go when they no longer meet expectations and no longer provide satisfaction. Unfortunately, many people find them difficult to relinquish; they inadvertently see their friends as providing valuable self esteem, says Miss Kaine.
Mrs Everist suggests the reason a friendship is there in the first place, is often the reason it is hard to break, particularly if the reason was loneliness "We expect friends to be for life, but sometimes they’re stepping stones, and just made because of the circum-stances. When you move out of those circumstances you move on to other friends. It’s part of a life cycle."
Both men and women expect good friends to possess certain qualities. They should be loyal, able to give without expecting anything in return, discreet in holding confidences, guiding without judging, open and honest, accepting without "letting you be anyone else than yourself", according to Miss Kaine.
But there are differences in friend-ships between the sexes. Women often confide in each other with an ease that astounds men. Women's conversation often takes account of the emotional climate of the subject matter. Their friendships have an enormous significance and prominence.
Male friendships, on the other hand, do not often rely on confidences shared. Their feelings and their private lives usually remain undiscussed, according to Dr David Jansen, a clinical psychologist.
"Men often talk about a third thing, like sport, politics or women, but not really about themselves. They ask their friends to have a drink with them, they support each other by being there and sharing activities, but not much by talking. In Australia, male friendships are very important. Men have mates who stick by them, helping them out in times of adversity. They help with finances or careers or loaning of cars or painting of houses or manual labour in the garden. It’s sort of the Anzac spirit."
Dr Jansen suggests that women may create an illusion that they are expos-ing their deeper selves. "That's dangerous because they’re not really dealing with the issues, although they may relieve their anxieties for a while," he says.
PERFORMERS Steve Abbott, 36, and Glenn Butcher, 32, are such good friends they even get colds at the same time. "But today he’s had a Codral and I’ve had an Orthoxicol," says Steve. "Normally, we both would have taken Orthoxicol. I haven’t actually been seeing as much of him as I was last year because I’ve got a job." Glenn, on the other band, finds himself for the first time without a major project to work on. "I actually feel as if I’m not doing anything and I’m becoming a bit bored. I’m sure that’s because there’s always been a cap of coffee or a game of tennis to fill in the time. We joke about bow much we miss each other," he says.
Their 12-year "brotherly" friendship began in "the ghettos of Newcastle" where they worked with a theatre education company before forming The Castanet Club. Their friendship "like a living, breathing Big Chill" has been closely entwined with their work since.
"It was as instantaneous as working together and then becoming friends," says Steve. "When you get dressed behind a screen, you see each other completely naked every day; you see people when they’re tired and tense and happy and sad. If you bold back and you’re in a theatre group then you create tension. We’ve always complemented each other quite well because we’re quite different personalities: I’m rough and he’s smooth; he's tidy and I'm untidy."
"He’s grubby and I’m neat," says Glenn. "I’m not as good tempered as he is; he’s a bit more easygoing. Steve wouldn't walk to my place (in Bondi); he wouldn’t walk to the corner shop, but I’d walk to his (also in Bondi)"
"In the broad Australian sense, we’re mates," says Steve. "I know most of what has happened in Glenn's life for the past 12 years and the same applies to him. We’ve got a long history together and we’ve seen each other at good and bad times, at extremities, because we’ve been exposed to a lot of stress in what we do. And when we do our double act on stage it’s like we share a sixth sense; we have an easy communication which we can transfer to the stage."
As an occasional "sports monster", Steve doesn’t usually go to the football with Glenn, but seeks to share some of his interests with other friends. All the same, they talk on the phone at least once a week. When Steve got married, Glenn was one of his witnesses, and when he learned that Glenn was gay, "it was never an issue for me, I just absorbed it".
"That's what makes the difference," says Glenn.
"When it’s not an issue, that's when it’s easy; it’s only with close friends you can feel that. And it’s like nothing else. Friendships are fundamental. The family l have now is a family of friends."