CONTAGIOUS FRIENDSHIP LESSONS FROM REAL LIFE

Contagious friendship sounds odd in the Covid era, but what else can you call it?

People dedicated to spending time with each other make it happen.

The best part is how friendship influences another.

If this is your experience also, then you need to answer one question:

How do so many people get it wrong?

The Difficult Friend

– I’m your best friend, right?

– It doesn’t matter, does it?

– I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t.

– I’ll help out: It doesn’t matter. We’re friends.

– But I want to be your best friend.

If you’ve had this conversation, and you’re not in third grade, you’re dealing with unfulfilled wishes.

Your best friend is who you decide. It’s not an application process.

So who is your best friend?

Asking For Help

– I need help. I’m leaving my husband and putting everything into storage. Can your husband pack my things into a moving van for me?

What?

I consider my wife a friend. Most of the time. She’s not so great when she starts asking why I don’t have any friends.

Her friend asked for help and my wife dove in. She offered the sort of support best friends give, but the other person still wondered who their best friend was.

When she offered my help I said yes because they were best friends. Or something.

The job lasted from six in the morning to midnight the same day.

Along with another helper who warned about their hurt back, we took big furniture out of a basement, into the truck, and off-loaded at a mini-storage.

Three months later everything got moved back. Without my help.

Would I help again? Would you?

Contagious friendship is more than answering yes of no, it’s more about influencing others to be better friends when they’re asked to help.

Friends Are Like Family?

When you consider the high disfunction in families, they may not be the best measure.

If I tell you that you are like family, you’ll probably see me every five years or so. Or the next funeral.

I saw more family at my aunt’s funeral than I’ve seen ever. Saw the cousins, their kids, and the folks my aunt grew up with.

Some of them had come to my dad’s funeral a few years earlier.

That I didn’t feel the warm embrace wasn’t a bother because it was a funeral. What I did notice is a little shade because I was the only one from my family wing who showed up in full force.

Instead of being in the moment I got questions about the others.

By then I was used to it. When the family dynamic sent everyone else away to find their future, I was left to hold down the fort with my parents.

It turned out that way because I’d already had a good future behind me and I knew what I was looking for. Namely, I wasn’t going anywhere after living in Philadelphia and Brooklyn, NY before coming to my senses.

Portland, Oregon was my last stop. Or so I thought.

Contagious Friendship Helps Marriage?

Since I was such an out going friendly guy, at the time, I met lots of interesting people.

The guys were as sketchy as ever, guys who re-built motorcycles in their apartments, guys who did a pretty good impersonation of drunken bar rags.

Some of the guys liked fighting each other; some of the girls liked those guys.

I never fought the guys, but I did referee a few matches. However, the girls who liked the losers I knew were interesting.

None of them were looking for Mr. Right. They wanted Mr. Right Now. Some of them went out with sailers on Fleet Week during the Rose Festival and came back with new hats.

They were publishing reps, students, artists, whip smart, and on the lookout for THE ONE.

We all agreed it would never be me, which was a comfort.

Then Something Happened

What happened was someone new walked up NW Lovejoy toward 21st.

She was wearing a blue dress, the sun hit her just right.

You could say I was struck out of the blue, too.

Four years later we got married and it’s held.

I’ve been in husband self-development class ever since.

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To a person, including everyone I know, and you know who you are, we committed to our kids.

We committed to the neighbor kids, school kids, sports kids. And each other. It was about education and example and consistency.

Why? 

For me it was about making better adults, and if you plan on living a few more years, better adults are a good thing.

To see boys grow to men with the confidence and good sense to figure out difficult problems without guns is a continual joy.

After I strapped in and started pulling the family wagon down the road, one of the ladies from the neighborhood talked about a man she knew, a man who had potential.

“We really hit it off. One morning he left a note for me. It was the first time I’d seen his writing on paper. Later in the day I offered to help him.”

“That sounds like a great couple thing to do.”

“That’s what I thought. Him, not so much.”

“Didn’t see a problem?”

“I was the problem after that.”

This is how contagious friendship grows.