On Love and Friendship

[igenlode]

https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/04/23/love-undetectable-andrew-sullivan-friendship/

A truly fascinating article reviewing a book which I haven't read ("Love Undetectable", by Andrew Sullivan), but which sounds well worth the reading; the review is basically summarising the subject via outstanding quotes from the original, which makes it seem redundant then to quote selectively again, although there is a great temptation...

Unlike a variety of other relationships, friendship requires an acknowledgement by both parties that they are involved or it fails to exist. One can admire someone who is completely unaware of our admiration, and the integrity of that admiration is not lost; one may even employ someone without knowing who it is specifically one employs; one may be related to a great-aunt whom one has never met (and may fail ever to meet). And one may, of course, fall in love with someone without the beloved being aware of it or reciprocating the love at all. And in all these cases, the relationships are still what they are, whatever the attitude of the other person in them: they are relationships of admiration, business, family, or love.

But friendship is different. Friendship uniquely requires mutual self-knowledge and will. It takes two competent, willing people to be friends. You cannot impose a friendship on someone, although you can impose a crush, a lawsuit, or an obsession. If friendship is not reciprocated, it simply ceases to exist or, rather, it never existed in the first place.

Comments

[betweensunandmoon]

That's beautiful.

[igenlode]

And he doesn't take the easy option of 'bashing' romantic love either (see how in the quote cited he acknowledges that you can legitimately love someone even if they don't return that emotion, without condemning this as in some way fake or evil compared to reciprocal sex)...

friendship is based on knowledge, and love can be based on mere hope… You can love someone more than you know him, and he can be perfectly loved without being perfectly known. But the more you know a friend, the more a friend he is.