Nathan Zalman

Dear Friend,

There are three fundamental rules of friendship that I subscribe to. I learned them from someone who is a former friend (I realize the irony inherent in that description).

Here they are:

Rule 1: Friends don’t keep score.
Rule 2: Friends don’t complain.
Rule 3: Friendship has only three rules.

He didn’t formulate them like this, of course. It’s through yours and my struggle to maintain our friendship through conflict (the degree to which that conflict has been overt over time is another matter) that I’ve come to think more deeply about the subject and propose this list. It is dicy for friends to talk about these things without indulging in a friendship-ending whine fest. I think your desire to have a “blame-free” discussion is a good one, though I would change the emphasis, perhaps drastically.

“Blame-free” is an attractive concept, though superficial: let’s just get on with the job at hand, shall we, and set aside recriminations and scape-goating. This sounds good until you think a minute and realize that it’s not without a presumption of guilt (however much we try to waive the actual assignment of that guilt, or minimize its importance, or something), and even, one would also presume, a bit of judgement. A unilateral judgement has been made that a “problem” exists, even though might remain hidden and unexpressed–or at least a judgement could be made, but we will–again with the unilateral–sidestep that for the sake of getting on with it, etc.

I’ve gotten in trouble nearly everywhere I’ve ever been employed because I tend to find myself strongly at odds with the prevailing mindless corporate bullshit about this. Judgements are always subjective; they’re not Facts, though they are often treated as if they were. They are decidely subject to the point of view of the Judge (notwithstanding the myth of impartiality) and all the personal and corporate baggage that implies. Most importantly, though, is that, no matter what the point of view, Judgements are usually wrong. And if they are unilateral, they are always wrong.

Alas, judgement, not to mention blame, has no place in friendship. Friendship cannot exist in anything other than a mutually egalitarian context. One can argue that it does have a place in commerce—if that is true the two things are then mutually exclusive. That is what I have come be believe. I’ve tried to remain “flexible” about that, but there really is no way to make it work.

I worked for you for a time, designing your website, getting it to work the way you liked. I know that you enjoyed being demanding and imperious (don’t deny this; if your friends can’t tell you “you’re not fooling me,” then who can?)–and it was fun for a while for me too. It was creative and interesting, and I love solving interesting problems. That’s why I was drawn into software in the first place.

Our friendship grew a kind of commercial pseudopod; as long as we stepped carefully things were okay. But I could see that, in the long run, it would become increasingly difficult to keep Rule 2, let alone Rule 1. And so it did. Things came to a head this time, I suppose, because of a fundamental conflict of interests–you need what you need when you need it with regards to your professional interests–and I have an absolute need to be left alone to write.

It was in recognition of this that I decided to stop working for you for pay–if you can’t follow the rules, you can’t have friendship–and friendship is more important than money. For someone who lives on a small pension, let me assure you, that’s saying something.

The truth is, we no longer have a business relationship. Did you forget? Sure, I know, habits of thinking are hard to change. I’m stepping around the rules here. As I said before, business and friendship do not mix. When money is involved, breaking the rules of friendship is pretty much required, if for no other reason than it introduces a power dimension [one of us has money; the other doesn't] that is incompatible with the values of friendship.

I don’t work for you anymore; that train has long since left the station. That stuff interfered with our friendship. It is for that very reason that I terminated our “business” association six months or more ago. As far as the rest is concerned, I have some grievances myself. Do you want to air those, too? They go back a long way, years in fact. The truth is, more often than not friendship, like marriage, is more about what you don’t like about somebody, than what you do, and about one’s determination to overlook the things you don’t like. We can remain friends if we don’t keep accounts, and don’t (generally) go to each other with grievances. We either accept all that stuff as part of the cost of doing business, as it were, or we move on and look for other friendships.

That metaphor (“the cost of doing business”) is an apt one. Friendship is not free.

Above all, Rule 2 is supreme: friends don’t complain. I know, that’s a bitch, because complaining is more-or-less something ingrained, even genetic, for us. If we’re still breathing, it’s because we’re complaining about something.

With marriage, which is the only other even slightly comparable mode of human relationship, you can’t avoid talking about grievances, not forever anyway, because daily life always brings out the worst in people. You have to face it head-on or else it takes over and wrecks everything. Every marriage starts out as a burning bush and ends up as some kind of topiary tree–one hopes that what’s left over after all the crap has been cut away will maybe resemble something attractive, and not a Charlie Brown Christmas tree–or worse, a tumblin’ tumble weed. All this makes marriage much more emotionally expensive–and consequently more rewarding–than friendship.

Friendhip is simpler because the things I don’t like about you don’t matter. Realistically, there are things that I hate about you, but for the sake of our friendship I’m never going to tell you about them. That would be an unwelcome intimacy. I assume there are things you hate about me, too. And, you know what? I don’t care. No, I really don’t. For everything you hate about me there are a dozen things about me that I will never let you know about which, if you knew, would make those things you hate about me seem like saintly virtues.

The rules of friendship will take care of these problems once you realize that not only do you need to keep the rules yourself, but you need to act in a way that helps prevent me, friend, from breaking them. It’s more than a two-way street. It’s a four-dimensional street.

I’m certainly not going to invite catastrophy by asking you to tell be about the things you don’t like and then pretending to try to change them–please, give me credit for some sanity–or pretending to agree with you that they need changing. So what? If there is anything about me other than my diaper that needs to be changed, keep that stuff the fuck to yourself. I for one think character improvement is an overrated myth.

There, I’ve said it. I’m not interested in becoming a better person. I am what I am, that’s all that I am, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man. If that puts you past the point of no return with me, well then, have a great trip, send me a postcard from hell. That’s because loving and creating are what I’m about. Fuck the rest of it. Self-improvement, “growth,” those are two things that are signposts on the road to religion.

And if there’s anything in this world that I really hate, it’s religion.

So you see friendship, to me, is something entirely accepting, non-judgemental, non-hierarchical, neither maternal nor paternal, and free of commerce; at the same time, it’s open to everything.

But then I have hinted at something that needs to be highlighted in turn–that friendships don’t necessarily last forever, either, nor must they. Long lasting friendships are something we need, something that gives context to our own inner dialog, at the very least. But sometimes it’s good to shut off some parts of the conversation–either because nothing more needs to be said, or because the rasping whine of chatter has become intolerable, or because, simply, silence has broken through and conversation has been revealed to be unnecessary.

I may have reached a stage in my life where friendship isn’t possible for me any more. I suppose this radical anti-personal growth stance might just preclude it, at least in view of my shrinking and now nigh-on extinct social circle.

Probably the best thing for me to do at this point is to get a dog.

In the final analysis, though, I don’t want to fight you. We’ve been friends, and I thank you for that experience. You were there, after all, when I needed someone–that’s not something to be tossed aside. What I am tossing aside, however, is that commercial pseudopod–or at least reminding you that I have already done that–and hoping that you’re okay with that, so we can go back to just being friends again.

That’s no small thing.