i like this framing. before romantic love, before family obligation, there’s friendship, i.e. the relationship you choose without biological accident or legal contract. someone looks at you and decides to keep showing up. yes, i will allocate a portion of my waking hours to be with this person. yes, i will be there to pick you up from the airport.c.s. lewis wrote that _lovers face each other absorbed in one another while friends stand side by side absorbed in something external_. you become friends by caring about the same problems. this is also why I found work-friends feel {{sidenotes[so intense]: you’re literally shoulder-to-shoulder looking at the same thing for 40+ hours a week}}.friends are still our first and sometimes best model of someone who chooses to be always on your side.
Ava, bookbear express
Aristotle distinguished three kinds of philia: (1) utility (we exchange value), (2) pleasure (we enjoy each other’s company), and (3) virtue (we love each other as we actually are). the first two dissolve when circumstances change. the third endures, because the foundation is who you are rather than what you provide. [^1] [^1]: this maps onto something karlsson observes: “love is friendship on hard mode.” romantic relationships aren’t a different category from friendship, they’re friendship plus difficulty, plus stakes, plus everything that makes it easier to fuck up.friendship was what taught me that love is an endurance sport with no finish line.
Ava
we’ve optimized away the very friction that creates connection. everything about predictive technologies gives us assisted living, esther perel notes, “people have easily 1000 virtual friends, but no one they can ask to feed their cat.” sheila liming wrote an entire book on this: “hanging out is productive, and the thing that it produces is our relationships with each other.” the unstructured time, the plans that get rescheduled, the showing up when it’s inconvenient, these are features, not bugs.friendships are, by their very nature, made of friction, knowing what's going on in someone's day-to-day life, making plans, rescheduling when someone gets sick, bringing over soup.
Rosie Spinks, the friendship problem
if any of this resonates, [reach out](https://f.aarnphm.xyz). \[^sign\]a long friendship really is like a marriage. it takes on a shape all its own over many years, and it is an education in intimacy. like marriage, it's nearly impossible to know in the beginning what it will be at the end.