Selfless Friendship

So I’ve been thinking about the nature of friendship and how it only works if the two parties are selfless. You give all of yourself to support them and their dreams, and hopefully, just hopefully, they will do the same for you. Now, I know what people will say. If you are being selfless expecting something in return, then isn’t that selfish? Of course it is, but everyone is selfish. That’s what motivates people. But if they were smart, they would figure out that the most selfish thing to do would be to be selfless.

As some people know, I have become very good friends with a group of Christian Conservatives. A lot of people, even people whom I call friends, might have problems with this. I can just hear it now, “How can you be friends with people who voted for Bush, are Pro Life, and are against Gay marriage? How could you support them spreading this crap?” But here in lies the truth. Do these things disturb me a bit? I would be a liar if I said that they didn’t. But they’re my friends, and I love them, and they love me, and that is what really matters. There is no pretension about what I will be or what they will be. There is no condition on our friendship. It’s just us, and they support me in my efforts, and I support them in theirs. I support them, not only because I love them, but because I know that even if I don’t agree fully with their methods, that they will do good in people’s lives.

See, that’s my job as a friend. It isn’t to figure out what I want my friend to be and make them go there. It is to figure out what they want to be and what they can be and help them get there. It isn’t about what’s best for me. It’s about what’s best for them. Heck, I’m really good friends with a girl who met her boyfriend right after I met her. I love her to death, and because I love her, I support her relationship, because that is what’s best for her in her life. I’d love nothing better than to have her as my own, but that’s bullshit. It’s all about me in the now, not me in the future, who will always have some one in his life who is kind and supportive of him, no matter what he is or is not.

Then I look at my best friend. He’s put himself out there for me in the countless times in the years that we’ve known each other. But in every single occasion where we could have made or broke our friendship, we always made it. He moved to NYC and it made us not take each other for granted. He offered me a job and I turned it down, and then he understood what my goals were and understood that I could stand my ground. We had a mutual friend who wanted nothing but to bring us apart, but we just grew closer together.

He and I have different lifestyles, and that’s fine, because we compliment each other and are never afraid to tell each other to brutal and honest truth, because we know that it’s out of love. Some girls, and even he, would argue that he is “afraid to commit”, but I would argue that most girls are afraid to commit to him. Sure, they want to have a relationship with him, but it’s only if he becomes someone who he is not, and that’s the problem.

Who the hell wants to be around people who want to change them? Who wants to be around someone who basically tells them that they don’t cut the mustard? All I know is that I will always love my friends, the people who see me for me and nothing else. The me with all his warts, the self doubt, the laziness, the chronic masturbation, the alcoholic sleepwalking self. That’s me, and I’m here to stay.