Make That Phone Call

Ein Freund, ein guter Freund, ist das Beste was es gibt auf der Welt [A friend, a good friend, is the best thing you can have in this world]. ―The Comedian Harmonists

I dedicate this essay to my friend Gerhard Almstedt, who was taken from us in 2024.

Source: TippaPatt/Shutterstock

Friendship is an underappreciated topic in psychological research, although having good friends is one of the cornerstones of a successful and rewarding social life. It is a source of happiness (Pezirkianidis et al., 2023). The 1930 song by the Comedian Harmonists is one of the few odes to friendship—beloved in Germany then, but almost forgotten now.

Like romantic love, friendship comes with a mystique, an aura of incomprehensibility. If all goes well, it seems to just happen, it seems like a gift of the gods. To think of friendship as an evolved capacity (Seyfarth & Cheney, 2012) or as something that requires work to be found, cultivated, and maintained (Sanchez et al., 2018), seems to spoil the enigma. There is a vigorous literature we can consult to understand friendship from a scientific perspective (Hojjat & Moyer, 2016), but, alas, folk psychologists won’t show much interest. Science is a downer, and even poetic expression, like the one offered by the Comedian Harmonists in 1930, makes some people cringe. Friendships among men, in particular, are rarely the object of rhapsody, perhaps for fear of homophobia.

With a nod to positive psychology, we realize that most of us have room to grow in the friendship department. With a little mindfulness, intentionality, and effort, we can reap more of the mutual rewards healthy friendships have in store for us. Alas, friendships are also easy to lose through neglect.

Consider my father. When he retired and spent much of his time at home in a state of boredom, he would complain that his old friends did not call him. Some of these friends, mind you, were still holding full-time jobs. When my father’s children pointed out that he might want to pick up the phone and call his friends, he vigorously objected. Oh no, it was their turn, their obligation, their duty to call.

Well, that was my father, and the anecdote is easily dismissed as a tale from the curmudgeon archives. However, note that there is a general psychological element at play here. By evolution, individual learning, and cultural norms, human beings are equipped with a strong sense of reciprocity (Trivers, 1971). Yet, the romantic view of friendship is that the mental accounting that is essential for reciprocity-based relationships ought not be a factor among friends. There is some truth to that. Friendships can run deep psychologically; they can become forms of durable attachments that are resilient and capable of being reactivated after years of pause.

Still, the give-and-take of reciprocity remains a powerful force. If all goes well, friends find an equilibrium of reaching out and responding that feels organic, natural, and unmonitored—again, it feels like a gift of the gods. What if this feeling has disappeared, as in my father’s case? He found himself in a place between hope and resentment. While still hoping his friends would call, his disappointment grew by the day, as did his resolve not to make the first move to mend things. In other words, my father found himself in a game of chicken (Rapoport & Chammah, 1966). By insisting not to be the chicken, he accepted the worst outcome, social isolation, with eyes wide open.

My heuristic advice -- as expressed in the essay's title -- to all who have an interest in maintaining friendship is to make the call, send the text, or mail the letter. It should be remembered, though, that heuristics are blunt instruments in the world of decision making, and we might want to bring out the magnifying glass and ask what the boundary conditions are. When should we stop doing what the heuristic recommends?

Let’s say you get the impression that it’s been always, or almost always, you who initiated contact. If so, perhaps your friends are trying to tell you something. Basic principles of learning will eventually help you recognize this, and you are free to pursue social rewards elsewhere (Skinner, 1958). However, the meta-heuristic here is not to be rash. Give your friends the benefit of the doubt. Although you remain prepared to eventually disengage, you accept the need to invest a bit more than you feel the other side is investing. As the dance of reaching out and responding remains a matter of reciprocity, it is wise to use the strategy of generous tit for tat (Rand & Nowak, 2013).

An underappreciated complication of reciprocal action is timing. Much as people are sensitive to whether others reciprocate cooperative moves, they are sensitive to how long it takes them to do so. Suppose your friend Mo always takes twice as long to respond as you do. Even if Mo is reliable, the impression will grow that his delays are expressions of power or claims thereof. In general, being able to wait, to delay communication, even the artful aposiopesis – the rhetorical pause, which forces the audience to wait with bated breath – comes with power and reinforces power.

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The target of such strategic delays has a choice between compliance and imitation. Compliance is not only a form of surrender but also a threat to the friendship itself. It would be naïve to think that friends are always equals. Often, one is more dominant than the other, if only by a little. Yet, the ideal is approximate equality. If the power imbalance becomes too large, the nature of the relationship changes. Imitation, in this context, is a form of pushback, it is a challenge. If you begin to delay your responses to Mo as much as he delays his responses to you, Mo will either get the message and help re-establish equilibrium, or he will fade from view. The imitation of delays is diagnostic. You will find out if Mo is your friend or someone who wishes to dominate you.

How does one know the depth of a friendship? Tragically, the clearest evidence only comes when a friend has died. Then, the depth of our grief reveals how much we have lost. As noted above, writing this essay brought back memories of my friend Gerhard. Whenever I visited Berlin on various professional or personal errands, I could call on Gerhard, and he was there. He made time. He did not waver. He was present. It took me too long to realize what a gift this was.