magistrate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
magistrate) wrote2010-11-02 06:13 pm
magistrate) wrote2010-11-02 06:13 pm
Data-point gathering
Because I'm curious, and because I really want to see how much of a range exists in the answers. I don't need long rambles, though I'll read them; first-thing-you-think-of answers are great, too.
Try answering without looking at anyone else's answers, first.
1) How would you define a close/deep friendship?
2) What markers do you take to indicate that you're in a close/deep friendship?
3) What would you do in order to form a close/deep friendship?
[ETA] Part of the reason I'm curious is that I imagine it's radically different for a lot of people. I was struck by a quote in this book I'm reading: "Mary is so confused by the world of emotion that she could be your best friend and never know it." And it got me thinking that how we telegraph friendship is not always obvious.
Try answering without looking at anyone else's answers, first.
1) How would you define a close/deep friendship?
2) What markers do you take to indicate that you're in a close/deep friendship?
3) What would you do in order to form a close/deep friendship?
[ETA] Part of the reason I'm curious is that I imagine it's radically different for a lot of people. I was struck by a quote in this book I'm reading: "Mary is so confused by the world of emotion that she could be your best friend and never know it." And it got me thinking that how we telegraph friendship is not always obvious.
no subject
I think I would define this as a relationship in which I don't feel threatened or judged, I do feel that I have a place afforded in the other person's life, and we're capable of "not staring into each other's eyes, but gazing in the same direction," to steal a definition off love.
2) What markers do you take to indicate that you're in a close/deep friendship?
I think communication is a big thing. I live so much in ideas that any deep friendship is liable to involve a fairly sustained discourse, not just about the people in the friendship, but about aspirations, dreams, idle musings, challenges and successes and everything. The petering out of that is usually the primary indication I take to mean "We used to be really good friends, but we're not that close any more."
3) What would you do in order to form a close/deep friendship?
Going in with #2, I'd probably try to increase lines of communication. One big thing I do is once I remember what interests they have/we share, I find things and direct them their way – poems, internet links, news stories, event notifications, etc. I seek their input on things. Etc.
no subject
2) See the above. If I can tell them something personal, that probably means I'm close to them.
3) I think it just happens. Nothing special. Sometimes people click. It just talks talking and getting to know someone.
no subject
The markers for a relationship like this are emotional, to me. Actions, naturally, influence them, but will vary from time to time and person to person. The things that are most important to me to feel in relationships that I consider intimate are trust and respect. I need to know that there is a certian level of constancy and accountability in the people to whom I am vulnerable. I also need to feel a certain level of confidence that I can stand behind their priorities and endeavors myself. I have a diverse group of friends with whom I often don't agree on a lot of values and opinions. However, feeling like there are things I can genuinely support in their lives is an important part of our friendship.
Most of my intimate partnerships (not just lovers, of course, but I find there is a much smoother spectrum than just 'friend' and 'romantic attachment') have seemed more to form themselves. Individuals with whom I have felt a natural rapport. I tend to make fairly good emotional judgments of people who will or will not fit into my physical, spiritual & emotional life. I rarely feel like I have misjudged someone's intentions or integrity. So, that fairly amorphous set of criteria are what I 'use' to form close friendships. I don't think there's any one set of actions that can be universally applied to the formation or structure of any given relationship.
no subject
On the most basic level, it's someone I talk to on a regular basis and someone I will make the effort to initiate contact with. I am notoriously bad at initiating contact, so if I pounce someone on a regular basis in IMs to talk about random stuff they're probably a pretty close friend of mine. On a more complex level, a close friend is someone with whom I can trust to talk about my emotional/mental health issues without feeling like I'm being judged. They don't have to always understand necessarily, but they do need to remain supportive of me even through the parts they don't understand yet. (Having an understanding of my mental health issues and needs certainly does fast-track someone to the close friend category, though.) Close friends are people for whom I'd help them out financially (as much as I could), no questions asked, if they needed money.
I am aware the rest of society probably defines this differently.
2) What markers do you take to indicate that you're in a close/deep friendship?
As I said, the fact that I will go out of my way to initiate contact--making the first move to IM someone instead of waiting them for them to contact me is usually a pretty big sign. Also the fact that I'll start talking to them about my mental health in a serious way instead of blowing it off when I'm talking about it.
3) What would you do in order to form a close/deep friendship?
I feel like I keep repeating this, but contact, contact, contact. Usually I'll meet people in a group setting or one of my other friends will introduce me to someone and I'll hang out with them for a while and decide 'Hey, I really like this person, we should try to be better friends' and then I'll try to start poking them on AIM or Twitter to have more one-on-one discussions and stuff instead of interacting in a group setting only. It's a bit hit or miss, though. There's a fair number of people that only make it to the "friend" category, where I'll poke them sometimes, but it'll be kinda irregular and usually when I'm bored and trying to avoid homework.
***
As an added note, most of my close friends are my chosen family...which usually results in me being kind of in love with them. It doesn't always have to be romantic love, though it's fairly synonymous with chosen-family-love most of the time. (My perceptions of love are kind of wacky.) (Also, this is not the same as regular famlial love in the normal sense, which usually manifests for me as "You're a nice person and sometimes we hang out together at holidays because we're related but I have no idea how to relate to you emotionally.")
no subject
Look at me
I actually remembered this password! *confetti*
Anyway, yes.
1) How would you define a close/deep friendship?
Oh. I thought these would be easy, but now I'm having trouble defining. Um. I guess a close/deep friend would be someone who feels like home.
2) What markers do you take to indicate that you're in a close/deep friendship?
A sense of comfort/ease, where I feel like I can be myself. Sufficient trust to have been to each other's homes and/or be able to borrow/lend things with the idea that they'll be returned to their proper places. Being at a place in which I would not hesitate to discuss personal/private, potentially embarrassing matters, and in which I wouldn't be a little weirded out by the other party discussing similar subjects with me. Full confidence that they wouldn't turn around and smash a bottle over my head in a bar fight. Being okay with physical signs of affection (hugging, nomming, happy punching).
3) What would you do in order to form a close/deep friendship?
I don't, really. They just happen, like ninja attacks in the night. Maybe if, throughout the course of our interaction, a person proves hirself increasingly less reprehensible than I find the bulk of human society, then I might try harder to hold up my end of the conversation. Though sometimes I also simmer in silent approval of the other party's existence, so it can be hard to tell.
no subject
It's someone I can talk to openly about myself and other things, but it's also just sort of a feeling. A lot of my close friends I consider to be Pack or Tribe, and there's... sort of a moment of recognition, when you see someone that is like that. You just go 'yeah, they're Mine' (or I do, anyway). It's the people who are used to me saying really weird ridiculous stuff, and especially the people who will engage with me in those weird discussions. There's... idk. It's a connection that I pretty much can't describe, but it's there. I think really what it is for me is someone you can trust almost absolutely--the people you go to no matter how bad situations are, but also with all your private little victories. They're people you share part of yourself with, I think, and the ones with either the closest understanding or the most accepting of your personal views and experiences. ...None of this is making much sense, sorry.
2)What markers do you take to indicate that you're in a close/deep friendship?
Okay so I lied, I can totally talk about it. It's just... odd, I guess. Because the way I really really know that I'm in a close friendship with someone is I can feel them. It usually takes a while, but eventually we get so close that I can feel them and I know when they're upset or unhappy without even being in the same location. (I've done it from over 100 miles away before, though that was after a LOT of personal interaction, and it's probably the connection I've felt the deepest in my whole life.) On a spiritual level, it's like there are tethers of colored light connecting me to the people in my life--the colors are all different, and in certain cases the colors change with the way the people are feeling (for example: one of my brotherthings's tether is white, but when he's feeling crappy it gets like a gray color. idk if this is making sense). That's really the way I know if we're close, if I can feel them.
3) What would you do in order to form a close/deep friendship?
I'm not sure. Interaction is really important to establish that relationship--not necessarily face-to-face interaction, but just a sign every once in a while. It takes work to maintain that feeling of being able to feel someone else, not a lot of work but some effort. I'm not really sure, though.
[This was so rambly, I'm sorry. Also, this is a teenage perspective coming with influences of high school. So yeah.]
no subject
This is probably not at all helpful, but that's all I can do. :/
no subject
I don't know how to define it; it varies from person to person. So it could be being able to tell each other anything and being able to talk easily. Or it could mean being willing to do anything within (and sometimes without) one's means for the other person, if they needed it. Or it could be a deep trust -- for what, I couldn't say. Or it could just be the presence of love so great it would hurt too much to lose it. Or it could be someone with whom it's easy to Just Be without obligation to speak or entertain. Unfortunately, it seems that for me, I have never found one person with whom I feel all of these.
2) What markers do you take to indicate that you're in a close/deep friendship?
I have never been able to see the reciprocal part of this, so for me it's feeling one or more of the above for another person.
3) What would you do in order to form a close/deep friendship?
I've never actively thought 'I would like to form a close friendship with this person' and then taken steps to do it. I have always just let things flow where they will and somehow the friendships have formed around me.