It has always been a youngster’s wonder to mix friendship with other types of love. Early relationships make their way. However, their confusion is not hard to understand. What are the boundaries between a loving friend with other types of love, such as romantic love?
Ayn Rand once said that love is to see yourself in another person. A very famous quote of her follows:
To say ‘I love you’ one must first know how to say the ‘I.’
Her proposition was very compact. One cannot love without being independent and self-sufficient. Only then can we see the proper form of love. Other types are parasitic love, in which you trade your loving behaviour for different types of gains. If one gives others the glory, one person cannot possibly gain themselves; the necessity of keeping the glory automatically conditions the so-called friend. Can we call such anxiety a friendship?
Yet, things stir up when “I” become the enemy of “I”. In such conditions, one shackle themselves. For one’s own neurotic needs, they try to gain the favour of others. Though the aim is always for security, no real intention of knowing others is involved in the process. Can we call such -ships friendship?
The distinction between friend love between romantic love is even more blurred as some types of friendships evolve into something neither romantic nor friendly, best described as an abomination. Can we call such an abomination friendship?
The most disgusting form is in disguise. One rationally pursuing other goals tries to fill another person’s emotional emptiness where he attempts to zone and exploit others in the name of friendship. It is usually too late for the exploited to understand he has been used and the other was not a friend. A fiend who had been infesting from their selves. Can we call such a friendship?
After all, these fiendish forms, do a real friendship exist rather than a fiendship? Some turned their back on this question, giving up all their hope and retreating to the caverns of Zarathustra. Some others seek the impossible and learnt that they seek the love of “god” who has been killed by the very hands of mortals. And a minority found this paradise of friendship and never returned. We do not have further information because of their absence. Yet, their last message is their absence.
One can come up with many criteria. Such could be to see yourself in others, have similar interests, or share a common goal. However, I do not think that all those criteria can even land into a section of friendship.
It starts as soon as one sees the fire in the other's eyes and the other sees the fire in one's eyes. Curiosity and compassion are seen even when the two persons do not know either party. Only some images and perhaps dreams of what is to come. Such an interaction does not require any prerequisites. It was like the friendship was formed long before you met. Everything else follows as a natural consequence.
The silent face filled with curiosity is looking at the other, searching for similar cues.
Do we seek black swans? Or better, do they seek us?
May you find friendships in a world saturated with friendships.
Initially published for Polyhedron on 10/20/2022
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