Love me, love my — what?
So, speaking of toddlers in restaurants (I haven’t felt brave enough to check my Miss Conduct e-mail account yet and see what, if any, fallout there is from yesterday’s column), there was a dustup about kids-in-public on some feminist/women’s blogs a few weeks ago. I’m not going to bother describing the argument because it went right down all the predictable grooves. One of those grooves, though, hit me in a new way: the question “My kids are the most important thing in my life, so if you don’t want to spend time with them, are you even really my friend?”
How do you feel about that? Do you have a “Love me, love my X (kids, spouse, religion, dog, art, profession, family of origin, politics, cooking)” in your life?
I don’t think I do. One “X” is pretty well my limit — if, for example, you actively hate dogs and you’re convinced that the social sciences are, without exception, pure hokum, chances are we’re not going become BFFs. And I can’t imagine being friends at all with someone who actively disliked my husband, in the sense of finding him an unpleasant or morally objectionable person. But if it’s more a situation of, “Hey, Mr. Improbable is a great guy, but I sort of don’t get his sense of humor and I’m prefer you and I mostly hang out on our own” — well, that seems kosher to me, and it would to him, too. I’m sure he has friends who feel I come on a little strong. (No, really.)
But I’m friends with people who dislike dogs, or oppose organized religion, or who have no interest in my psychological research, or don’t read my column/blogs/book, or in various other ways don’t support or show interest in a particular and important part of my identity.
Are kids a wholly different kind of X? I’m guessing not, based on the parents that I’m friends with. With few exceptions, I’m very awkward with children. I’m that friend my mommy friends get together with for grownup time. And that seems to work just fine, because they need those friends, too. And of course, I’m nice to their kids when I see them and I always enjoy hearing stories about them. But I’m not Auntie Robin, and my friends seem okay with that.
What’s your X? Have you ever lost a friend over an X? Are certain X’s qualitatively different from others?
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I don’t know if it’s a love me, love Star Trek….but the friendship definitely won’t survive if one openly hates Star Trek.
For significant others, it’s a love me, love my cat. We’re a package deal.
Great question!
The only Xs I can think of that would be qualitatively different would be if a close friend was actively working against something that was an intrinsic part of one’s personal identity. I couldn’t be good friends with someone like that (although I could be a polite acquaintance, neighbour, or coworker. )
I’ve never lost a friend over any X as far as I know. I think the key is mutual respect…and occasionally making a friendly agreement not to discuss certain issues if we can’t discuss them graciously.
I think it has to do with how intrinsically the X is part of a friend’s individuality. And funnily enough, I don’t think one’s kids should be a central part of one’s sense of self. (Woe betide the kids whose parents think that way, though it seems to be the case more and more often…)
But I do have friends whose politics are not like mine, for example, and we just don’t talk about the places where our differences get bumpy. (Though there are a lot of places where our opinions intersect, even on politics!)
My best friend is similar to you in her attitude towards kids. She cares about my children because she loves me, and the older they get they more she will enjoy them – I think she finds toddlerhood extremely trying. That’s just fine with me, and I deeply appreciate the conscious choice she’s made to be a major part of my kids’ lives because she feels its important to share such a major part of my life.
I have reconnected with an old friend through FB, and I am not sure I want to continue or deepen the connection (I did, when he first reappeared in my life). He’s a childless man who seems to have some contempt for parents and some real distaste for kids, and I’m not sure I want him in my life. That’s different, to me, than someone who just isn’t all that interested in or doesn’t enjoy being around my kids.
I guess…I don’t think I have an X, exactly, but I have issues with people whose own issues are so vehemently presented that they override social niceties. People on either the left or right whose politics are their overweening god, or religious people who evangelize – that sort of thing.
I think it depends on context. I don’t expect my friends to share my values – BUT I have a friend (my age) who had her children in her 20′s. I was always interested and supportive of her kids (and I genuinely love them). I had my daughter at 34. My friend was palpably uninterested in my daughter when she was a baby/toddler. This has changed our friendship, it is now very superficial, almost a chore
I think Sandrad is right that it depends a lot on context. Do they hate all X’s or are they apathetic toward them or just not click with your particular X, do they make a big deal of their dislike of your X, etc.?
Like, if someone had a deep hatred of dogs and/or cats, it would raise red flags for me about what kind of person they are. Unless they have a *phobia,* which is a whole different thing. If they’re just not particularly a dog person or a cat person, that doesn’t bother me. (It won’t bother my cats either; cats gravitate toward people who either don’t like them or are allergic. Apparently they like a challenge.)
Similarly, there’s a big difference between being awkward around kids of certain ages or having trouble interacting with them than having a deep-seated dislike for them.
I definitely agree with MelissaJane’s last paragraph. People who aren’t crazy about things I value are way easier to be friends with than people who act like jerks about their own X’s.
I don’t think I have an X, either. Like Veronica, my cats are part of the deal for a significant other, but I have friends who are allergic or disinterested. I think its more of a “love me, accept that I own cats, knit, watch too much sci-fi television, am not consistently politically aware” etc. I don’t know if kids are different. I don’t have them. By choice. I have lost friends who could not respect that choice and continued to hound me about it.
What about “love me, embrace the fact that I love my X” Because I can certainly be friends with people who don’t love my children/dogs/husband/politics but cannot be friends with people who insist that my children/dogs/husband/politics are obnoxious little brats/barking terrors/unconscionable bore/worse than Stalin. I have to be able to talk about openly and comfortably the things that I love and are important to me, without feeling like I’m taking up someone’s time. And of course it’s reciprocal, or it’s not a friendship.
And, as a total aside, I think that my use of slashes here is both reasonably clever and grammatically acceptable, but I recognize that you might not feel the same way. People feel strongly about the slash.
Love me, love the fact that I have a same-sex spouse. Or at least accept it. You don’t have to love her, but you can’t pretend she doesn’t exist. Yes, I lost a couple friends when I came out, but not many, and one was an ex-boyfriend, so that one wasn’t a huge surprise. :)
-Seems to me that the issue isn’t with not-loving, but with what one does instead of loving. Like everyone else, I would react differently to people who hated or belittled my Xs than I would be of someone who just wasn’t into them.
Children, per se, are not a different sort of X than anything else, but they do belong to a class of Xs that have certain strong rights on your time, and to whom you have responsibilities. If you don’t love your friends’ small children, you are going to have to accept that you won’t see as much of those friends for about a decade, because it’s hard for them be child-free to be with you.
I hope friends will be somewhat interested in hearing about what is important to me, but they don’t need to participate in it. My best friend doesn’t care to read fiction, which is boggling to me. Though good stories are a central interest of mine, they’re not my only interest. I can see how it would be harder if I was a “my X is my whole life” kind of person. It’s better if you can cross that one thing off the list and still have plenty of common ground elsewhere.
Disdaining what is important to me would make friendship impossible, not being a fan is fine.