Sans Fig Leaf

Previous
Index
Next

Email

w

"Sufficiencies"

19 September, 2002

A friend surprised me one day when she informed me that my primary socializing group was scary. When asked to explain, she said, "You finish each other's sentences." She had known couples who did that. She had known pairs and very occasionally trios of close friends who did that. But she had never seen a group of over a dozen people who all knew each other well enough and were comfortable enough with each other that any one of them might finish one of the others' sentences.

My first thought was simply that we've all known each other for a very long time. Mark and I have been friends for about 20 years. I start corresponding with Keith not long after I met Mark, and we met for the first time the following year. I've known Julie for 18 years (and we were married for four), and Kristin and David for 14 or 15 years.

But that can't be the only explanation. Several members of the gang have joined much more recently, yet seemed to fit in frighteningly fast. Others have tried to join, but with less success.

I wondered if it might be a similarity of interests. Many of us are fans of science fiction, fantasy, and related genres of fiction. But several of us have very different tastes in that material, and a few of the gang only have a passing interest that seems motivated more by friendship with those of us who are dyed-in-the-wool fans.

It isn't that we a common background. We have members who were raised in families of varied economic status, religions, and areas of the country. Several of us are gay or bi, but most of the gang is straight. We've got atheists, pagans, christians, agnostics, a buddhist, a taoist, and a couple who blend several of those together. Some of the gang are completely apolitical, and a few have been activists. Age-wise we have a spread of about 20 years separating the oldest from the youngest.

Every time I came up with something that might be what held us all together, I thought of exceptions.

So I decided to examine the cases of people who tried to integrate into the group but never quite did. Of those, there were two that socialized with us for over a year that I felt I got to know well enough to make some evaluation of why they never quite fit in. As I thought about them, I noticed a commonality right away.

Each defined their sense of self and self-worth entirely by their opinions of people they associated with. They were nearly polar opposites in personality. One was extroverted and gave a first impression of being self-assured and cheerful. The other was a gloomy wallflower--so gloomy that within a half hour of meeting her you would find yourself surreptitously looking at her wrists so you can guess how many times she had tried suicide.

The first maintained her cheerful and self-assured attitude by holding nearly everyone around her in contempt. When she entertained the notion of not looking down on someone, she immediately began trying to mold them intoa person just like her.

The second envied and/or resented just about everyone she knew. She was always trying to please someone, trying to make them like her. And she was always trying to hurt someone, to make them feel worse than she did. In at least one case she was trying to do both to the same person at once!

It was in examining them that I finally saw what the rest of us had in common. None of us needed the approval of our friends to feel secure. Neither do we need to build up our self-esteem at the expense of others. There are varying levels of self-confidence and security among us, but we all seem to be self-sufficient in the area of self-worth. Which isn't to say that none of us ever succumbed to the temptation to compare ourselves, favorably or otherwise, to others. Nor that none of us are competitive.

But in no cases does it appear, at least to me, that such comparisions are necessary to each one's sense of self.

I know that the love and support and laughter of my friends is an important part of my happiness, don't get me wrong. I know that their willingness to like me in spite of my imperfections is a big part of what makes my life feel as wonderful as it does.

But it's similar to the difference between a tank of breathable air and a full-fledged atmospheric ecosystem. I can survive with the tank of air. I can accomplish all sorts of things with the tank of air. Breathbale air is one of the things necessary to life. But it isn't sufficient to live, and to live well.

A minimal level of self-respect is a basic necessity for a social life. For a full and rich and rewarding social life we must have other things beyond the minimal necessities.

It's the difference between merely breathing and soaring.