"Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever talk about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest." (pg. 61)
I don't know if I fully agree with Lewis' view here. I agree with the view of the lovers face to face and devoted to one another, involving working on their relationship, getting to know each other more in depth all the time, and focusing on each other's needs. But I don't think that friendship doesn't involve this sort of work. Obviously, friendship isn't going to be eros in many ways, but I don't think that friendship is solely focusing on common interests.
I wouldn't depict friends always as side by side; friends also are face to face when they show interest and care for one another. Friendship is a relationship that needs attention and devotion. It requires getting to know one another better and that involves showing interest. Many things do just come up over time, but a showed interest is also quite necessary. As well as interest, focusing on a friends needs is necessary for a successful friendship. A friends needs are going to be different than a lovers needs, but that doesn't mean a friend won't need a shoulder to cry on or a listening ear or consideration on how you can show your friendship-love to them. So I don't feel that friendship is just about some common interest. I think it may start that way, but then goes much deeper.
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ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with Elise's last comment in her first paragraph, "...but I don't think that friendship is solely focusing on common interests." I think Lewis needs to identify exactly what a common interest is to a friendship. Is it a favorite team, past time, book, drink, or food? Is it a certain belief or world view? It is obvious that there needs to be some common ground when starting a friendship. But do we base our friendships off of these common interests? To be complete opposites (which I would find nearly impossible) and still be friends would be quite difficult. I don't look at certain friends and go 'I'm friends with you because we have this common interest’. After talking about that in class, I looked at some of my high school friends and wonder why we were friends. Honestly I do not know why, but it was probably we were different than the rest of the girls in the school. I love being their friends, because they make my life more interesting. We can share each other’s interests that we do not have in common and develop better as individuals learning about something we know nothing about. I think when we begin friendships we keep finding out more similarities and differences between the groups. For example or a similarity, my roommate quoted something off a game board the end of our freshman year. I thought no one else ever heard of this game and it was crazy that two Midwestern girls know about a game from the west coast, but it turns out we both love this game. However, we do not base our friendship off of this.
ReplyDeleteAnother topic I want to investigate is jealousy of friendships. We described it in class about losing someone to another friend, but is it possible to be jealous of friendships we see in other people? For an example, there are a bunch of girls from my high school that were and are still very good friends (All 8 of them). Although they do not all go to the same schools, they still stay connected and hang out with one another when they are all back home. Although their common interests are very minimal (honestly I can't tell) they still care for each other. Now looking at this group, I think it would be easy to become jealous of them. I think this jealousy becomes of wanting to be part of it. Now we do not know if Lewis ever experienced this type of jealousy of wanting to fit in with a certain group, but it would be interesting to see if there were other scholars that he didn't fit in with. However, I think he would be quite content with his friendships since he does share that common interest with them.