Kevin taught history and Claire taught art at a small Midwestern college. They developed a close friendship, often having lunch together or taking walks around the college grounds. Kevin and Claire were open about their relationship, saying they were ‘just friends’ and that neither of their spouses had problems with their friendship. Despite their openness, ugly and unkind rumors began to spread. “How can a man and woman spend so much time together and just be friends?” “They are both married-how can they flaunt their relationship like that?”
Eventually Kevin and Claire had to cool their friendship due to rumors and some discreet pressure from the college administration. Thus ended the non-affair of Kevin and Claire.
Kevin and Claire’s problem is not new. Male and female friends are often the subject of close scrutiny and skepticism. Many people believe that opposite-sex friends cannot spend time together without getting sexually involved. Is this really the case, though? Is it not possible for men and women to be ‘just friends’ Kevin and Claire’s college community did not think so. The skepticism and rumors to which they were subjected revealed confusion over romance and friendship, sex and intimacy. I will attempt to sort out these and other misperceptions about friendship in the next few articles. But before I do that, I must first explain the love involved in friendship.
Friendship is the most flexible relationship we will ever experience. The term friend covers a broad range of relationships, from our limited acquaintance with the teller at the bank to people we have known since childhood. Consequently, friendship is a difficult love to define. The best way to define this elusive love is to start with the obvious and work our way up to the not so obvious. To begin, here is my definition of friendship: a love characterized by equal regard with respectful distance.
Equal regard. My high-school campus overflowed with students. The school was designed for 3,000 students, and we had 4,500. Being rather shy, I had a difficult time making friends in such a big place. I found my niche among the 200-plus musicians of the marching band.
In marching band I experienced friendship in a powerful way. We all had two things in common: a love of music and a willingness to work hard. We practiced several hours daily to learn music and routines for the next football game. Because we needed to work together to make each halftime show succeed, there was a strong sense of camaraderie between us.
My experience in marching band illustrates one trait of friendship: We choose our friends because we have something in common. The commonalties might be work, religion, hobbies or athletics. In my example, it was the love of music that we had in common.
