Layers of Friendships

My wife and I were having a conversations about friendships the other day.

Since then, I've been trying to come up with a way to describe how some friendships—or even relationships more broadly—differ from each other.

I've landed on something for now and the intention of this post is to outline it.

I'm going to use the layers of the onion metaphor.

A lot.

***

Take a moment to think about who you were in high school.

The types of clothing you wore/found cool. The music you listened to. The things you did for fun.

The way you talked.

It's very (very) likely that you're not in high school right now.

You've changed since then, right?

Quite a bit, if I had to guess.

In fact, I bet that if you tried, you could segment your life into different layers, and then place those layers on a horizontal continuum from left to right.

On the left would be the furthest back in time and on the right would be the present time.

Imagine moving through those layers from left to right, and think of the changes that have taken place with each layer.

At this point in our journey, I'd like to acknowledge two things:

1. Either slowly or very quickly, I think we actually shed most of—if not all of—our previous layers as we move from left to right.

2. As we move from left to right—as we get older—we develop a truer understanding of who we really are.

Where do friendships come in?

***

I think that friendships—and again, relationships more broadly—fall into two categories:

1. Ones that live only within a given layer.

2. Ones that travel between layers.

Let's talk about each of them.

For the ones that live within a given layer, the depth of those friendships really depends on what happened in that layer. If a lot happened, but it was many layers ago, then it's likely that if you still maintain some of those friendships, you spend a lot of time in nostalgia.

Those friends may still think you are the version you were back then. They may still be stuck on that layer. They haven't travelled through your many layers since, nor have you travelled through theirs.

For the ones that travel between layers, the depth of those friendships is built on everything that has happened through the layers. Those friendships may not necessarily be deeper than the single layer friendships, they're just more up-to-date. They're more aware of who you really are in the present moment. Your time spent with these friends may contain a blend of nostalgia and creating future nostalgic moments.

***

We're always moving through layers.

It's worth pausing to ask which friendships are and aren't too.