Both psychologists and philosophers assert that one has to "be" before one can "belong." But being and belonging feed into each other. Being is not a static state; it is ever evolving; one acquires only degrees of being. In fact, it may be more accurate to refer to "becoming" rather than "being." Belonging becomes intricately woven into the process of one's becoming.
The infant is born into a world. The immediate world of that infant is the mother, from whom he or she cannot differentiate. Simply by belonging to its mother, the infant has its needs met. The mother's relationship to the infant isn't just that of a grown-up taking care of the helpless, although an element of this is always present; primarily it is a primitive, if mysterious, bond. We share that primitive mystery with the community of all animals. Among penguins, who seem to be incapable of hurting anything, a mother will harshly push away a lost baby penguin of another mother. That innate instinct to preserve her own is universal. By contrast, human beings, and even some animals, are capable of adopting and nurturing others' offspring. Such altruism flies in the face of all genetic science and is explainable only by the mysteriousness of our belonging to each other at some fundamental level of communion.
As an infant matures, a psychological birth occurs: the child begins to differentiate from maternal belonging to independent being; he or she starts relating to others: father, siblings, relatives, grandparents, neighbors. At first the child is passively loved and introduced into the community of the family: all that is required of him is a minimum of reciprocation, like a little smile. By school age, though, he'll be expected to seek and engage actively, to maintain membership in the community. He must relate to teachers, classmates, and friends, participate in extracurricular activities, be able to socialize and fully engage with other people. Some older children, and even adults, will maintain that passive-receptive attitude of younger years in relation to the community, always waiting to be recruited. But belonging is an activity, and it requires time, energy, and commitment. As the old saying goes, if you want to have friends, then be one. Some individuals remain aloof, afraid of their limitations, believing that their shortcomings might be discovered or their foolishness exposed. But this stance leads ultimately to a self-fulfilling prophecy: their rejection by others. This assumption of a handicapped self implies the perfection of others. In fact, we are all limited in our own ways.
The common belief that one wouldn't need friends if one had a man in his/her life is a common defensive illusion and a maladaptive one. Even good marriages cannot survive in such isolation. We need friends and less intimate relationships as much as the most intimate ones, for they serve different degrees of belonging. Even if one finds a "perfect" mate and have children, they would not bring what she/he is yearning for. Research shows that while no amount of friendship is sufficient to compensate for the loss of close attachments and emotional intimacy, intimate personal relationships alone do not provide life with meaning. Robert S. Weiss studied couples who in the course of their marriage had moved away from the neighborhood in which they had settled. He found that intimate attachments to their spouses remained intact, but what distressed them was no longer feeling part of a larger group. These findings suggest that whether or not they are enjoying intimate relationships, human beings need something else-a sense of being part of a community that goes beyond the one constituted by immediate family and other intimate relationships.
The universe often feels too big for us, and we yearn for a secure nest, a contained belonging. This sense of belonging to something defined also protects us from the other side of the intimacy coin, the feeling of inner infinity that each of us secretly carries and that we may sometimes experience as a boundless abyss. When we belong to a community or group, we have a structured and bounded mooring to protect us from the amorphous threat of the infinite from without and within.
The choice of freedom from attachments, creates total isolation. As Peter L. Berger says in A Far Glory, making a deliberate choice condemns one to freedom that generates existential anxiety. Any reversible decision obtained by free choice doesn't stabilize the self. Even choosing one's religion doesn't help the anxiety, as one presumes it might. This is because choosing itself, even if the subject matter is faith, is a choice. Since it can be reversed, it can be destabilizing. The self cannot be a matter of decision.
Erich Fromm viewed the escape from freedom in his book of the same name, Escape from Freedom, as a remedy for existential anxiety and our "quest for community." The basic structure of the community imposed upon individuals provides a security of belonging without choice. In contrast to condemnation to freedom, in imposed community one is offered the salvation of restraint. Instead of the existential anxiety of freedom, one is provided with the peaceful of communion.
Besides the innate genetic tendencies to seek a paternal investment in men, women have a powerful emotional investment in a long-term relationship. Every woman knows intuitively how psychologists explain women's intense interest in marriage from a developmental perspective. The individuation process in girls requires severing a strong bond with their mothers, with whom they first attach and identify. It is a double task of identification and separation that boys don't have to go through. For boys, their mothers remain attachment figures, with or without separation. Their identification with their fathers does not interfere severely with the individuation process. In younger years, boys can date girls without attachment, have sex, or run back home to their mothers without ambivalence. Girls, by contrast, use relationships with boys as instruments of separation from their mothers. They need a new permanent attachment to give up the earlier one to the mother. Boys never have to give up that earlier one; their becoming men and their relationships with their mothers are not mutually exclusive. Occasionally, though, what remains of the original attachment creates problems for their wives.
Some people say they have lots of friends, but if you ask them to define those relationships, you'll find that they will not share their intimate thoughts, concerns, and emotions with these friends; they would not even yearn to be with them. They will neither rejoice their fortune not be hurt by their pain. King David, after hearing of the death of his dear friend Jonathan, sang a dirge: "I am heartbroken over you, my brother Jonathan!" If you are not at least heart bruised by the loss of a friend, then you were not a friend: your relationship had not grown past the stage of acquaintance.
Friendship is our alternate psychological home. Friendship is not an optional need; it is a requirement for personal development. Psychological intimacy is not given; it grows with time, commitment, and being together through life events. A casual relationship can grow into as powerful an intimacy as that seen between passionate lovers.
One can be friends with a number of people, but no two relationships are alike, nor are they interchangeable. The inclusion of a third person (even another friend) in the dyadic friendship will change the character of that relationship, and not by dilution alone. Even talking about a friend to another friend interferes with that intimacy.
Contrary to common belief, friends do not need to see each other regularly, or talk on the phone frequently, or write long letters or e-mails to maintain their relationship. Once established, the friendship becomes part of oneself, an internalized attachment. It can be active or remain dormant. After months, even years of no contact, two real friends can pick up their relationship exactly where it has left off, engage each other as if they were never apart.
Friendship spans a wide spectrum-it is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. One can cultivate acquaintances and deepen relationships all the way to a "holy alliance." Such a friendship has its own unspoken, inviolate rules: it is reciprocal and open-ended; no exchange puts an end to it; there are no intended secondary gains. The target of one's gifts is the primary gain: love and affection. These gifts can be letters, telephone calls, or recognition of important moments with the other. If the gifts are given to promote something more than the relationship, the debts become burdensome.
