The Openness of Friendship

BY ALESHA SINKS

Alesha is a wife and a stay-at-home mommy to two lively boys, living in sunny South Florida. She loves cooking, reading, the beach, and long conversations with good friends. She writes essays and poetry to encourage herself and others to daily reset their perspective on truth.

The room buzzed around me with the joy and chatter that only a long-anticipated wedding can create. I glanced across our table to the next one where she sat. Our eyes met, and I smiled quickly, shyly.

Then I hurried my eyes away, embarrassed to be caught glancing her way again. But as I did, I caught the briefest look in her eyes. A look that felt so achingly familiar.

Perhaps, just maybe, she felt the same way I did. Just maybe she too felt that pull and desire to reach out, to exchange more than just the brief pleasantries and become real friends. But something held me back, and if I was right, it was holding her back too.

…

A few years earlier, my husband and I wandered downtown in the cool evening air with the same friends who would become the happy couple at whose wedding the prior story took place.

We walked and talked with this couple, some of the kindest (and coolest - I mean legitimately cool and trendy) people I had ever met. And at some juncture in the conversation, one of them gave voice to the fears swirling in their hearts, "We can't believe you would want to be friends with us." \

I was stunned. How could they, with their endlessly buzzing social life and fingers on the pulse of trendiness, feel that way about us? We were younger, shyer, and significantly “less-cool.” In fact, before inviting them to our tiny apartment for dinner, we had seriously debated if they'd even want to come.

Why would they want to hang out with us, after all?

They didn't need us as friends.

They had other friends more like them.

They had cool friends, and we were decisively not that.

(I know I keep saying we were less cool than them, which seems like a very middle school way to put things, but if you met them and us, you would agree.)

My mind reeled.

....

And at their wedding a year or so later, that moment came back to me, as I shared a glance with the girl-who-could-not-possibly-want-to-be-my-friend.

I wish I could tell you I walked over to her, sat down, and started a conversation. I wish I could tell you we were still friends today.

But I can't.

Fear kept me strapped to my seat, and I have regretted it ever since.

Regretted having seen a moment to reach out, to open myself in kindness and friendship yet choosing to stay away. Choosing fear of rejection instead of the generosity and kindness of putting myself out there. 

I have reflected on that moment, that split second choice dozens of times and have come to an important conclusion:

Everyone is searching for people who care, who notice, who see them.

Myself included.

And yes, not everyone I reach out to will become a best friend.

Not everyone I try to befriend will want to be friends with me.

Not everyone I reach out to in friendship will be a safe and healthy relationship for me to stay in.

Perhaps this particular girl and I would never have connected in the way I assumed.

But I still wish I had reached out.

I have come to believe, through countless friendships and desires for friendship of my own, that...

...love and choosing to see and hear someone for who they are is always a gift worth giving. 

All the things that keep me from reaching out and attempting a new friendship are not true. They are rooted in fear. And I intend to live a life ruled by love, not fear.

Love knows that friendship is a gift.

Love knows that everyone needs to be seen.

Love knows that differences are not a true barrier to friendship.

Love knows that there are almost always ways to connect, even in the most different stories and the most different personalities.

Love knows that offering to truly see someone in love is one of the greatest, most generous gifts you can give another human.

Love knows that friendship is always a gift worth offering.

Because most often, we are all searching for a little bit of connection. Even those of us who have lives full of love and friendship, are always touched by a moment of generous and friendly connection with another human.

Almost always, if we search a bit, we will find a way to connect with those who are willing to search too.

We are more alike than we realize.

And the best gift we can give is the gift of our willing and open selves in friendship.