Have you ever noticed it’s often much easier to be yourself around your friends as opposed to your family or your spouse? In some ways this is strange, as friendships are usually considered more casual relationships than marriage or family. Shouldn’t it be the case that the more committed and “serious” the relationship is, the more you can really reveal your true self?
Not necessarily. Beyond the reasons we know, friendships are incredibly important. They provide emotional support, social integration, and opportunities for fun and play. Friendship has a unique aspect that makes it especially good for honest, natural interaction. Friends don't see their destinies as intertwined with your own.
In other words, it’s the fact that we’re less “wrapped up” in our friends—and our friends are less “wrapped up” in us—that allows for honest and easy discourse. A friend doesn’t see her identity as dependent on the choices you make. Even a best friend knows that you are two different people, with two different paths in life. She doesn’t feel like her future is based on what you do today, allowing you to be fully yourself in the moment.
Let’s look at this compared to romantic relationships. We know that married couples almost always see their destinies as intertwined with one another. Typically speaking, where one spouse wants to live in the future inherently effects where the other person will live. One spouse wanting (or not wanting) to have children in the future effects whether the other person will end up having children. Intertwined destinies, in some ways, is the whole point of marriage.
But even in casual dating relationships, it’s already harder to be completely yourself with a boyfriend or girlfriend than it is with a friend. This is because there’s always the potential to intertwine your destinies. You may, at some point, want to combine your life paths… and this possibility often lends itself to less easy interactions. No one ever prompts a friend to “define the relationship.” No one ever asks a friend, “Where is this going?”
When it comes to family, there tend to be a lot of expectations that simply don’t exist (or don’t exist nearly as intensely) within friendships. Your family may expect you to do well in life simply to reflect well upon them. By contract, what you do with your life does not reflect upon your friends in the same way it may reflect upon your family. Your friends don’t brag that they have a doctor for a friend the way your mom might brag that she has a doctor for a son. Friends don’t see you as their “legacy” the way your parents easily could.
So how does all this translate into being able to be more yourself around friends?
Because friends don’t see your destiny as intertwined with their own, they don’t feel any need to change you, control you, or make you someone “worthy” of wrapping their identity up in. Friends allow for freedom—even as the relationship gets closer and closer. Freedom is the beauty of friendships. Friendship is freedom and closeness perfectly married.
