HOW CLOSE IS CLOSE IN RELATIONSHIPS?

Closeness can be an emotion or physical proximity.  Doing many things with 'friends' may shared interests, thoughts and opinions does not necessarily tell whether an emotional closeness may or may not exist.  Years ago, a true friend, whom I had not seen or been in touch with in several years, phoned me from across the country to share a personal quandary with me. Our conversation as though we had never been apart.  The special affinity we shared, the feeling that we trusted one another's opinion and held a deep respect and mutual regard for the other, was overwhelmingly acute..

Interest groups are an interesting connection for people whether it is a grief group, AA, a reading group, a woman's cookie sharing group or a gradually eroding group of seniors..  The Board of Directors of our now defunct Greater Boston Seniors Computer Group couldn't bear to part when we stopped our planning meetings, so we, the BOD,  have been meeting to talk about computers though many other subjects have been tossed around for the past five years.  A highlight is that we then go out to lunch and the camaraderie of those meals is priceless to us all.  Since it started as a group of seniors, we are like the Shakers...there is nothing to being new life into our group and we gradually lose members by attrition, usually health (or more precisely, the lack of it)..

In an attempt to analyze why so many disparate people may feel and identify closely in so many ways I finally realized that our closeness comes through all the life events we shared during that time and from the duration of time we have spent together which made us know each other so well..  In time, I realized similar elements in other groups in which I have been involved.  .A group may come together for a common goal or interest but other dynamics bring us together.  I was in a photography club many years ago, before digital cameras.  We proudly shared our pictures in competition but I doubt that too many of us took the results of the judging seriously.  The competition was, for most of us, just a reason to be with people who made us feel close and for whom we grew to care.

It brought me to think about the useless criteria many use to describe friendship.  Like any love, it is not a one-size-fits-all description of a relationship.  People talk about 'best' friends, 'good' friends, 'casual' friends, and 'acquaintances'.  These labels do not include loyalty, commitment, enjoyment of one anther's company and reasons for it which usually differ from other similar relationships.

I, for one, value all my friends and acquaintances and know I am not an emotional island.  When I lose one, for any reason, I am deeply saddened and the closing of that relationship in my ongoing memory bank is felt intensely.  Nevertheless, we will all keep losing them until we stop being able to feel, remember, or make contact through our own pain.  The experience of relationships will unlikely be the same for each of us within those relationships and we will all go on being who we are, as different as that may be.