Being There for Someone

¶ … true measure of a friend is their conduct towards you when you are going through bad times. Being there for your friends is considered the mark of a true friend. Thesis: the best way to be there for someone is to be there with someone, to be "present" with that person. It means sharing in the person's pain or joy or whichever emotion happens to arise while you are with that person.

Recently, a friend of mine dropped out of art school, an endeavor in which he had invested much time, money, and effort. He decided that it was too expensive for what it was giving him. He would have to go back to work full-time and save up money for another artistic endeavor.

Though my friend had a good reason to drop out of art school, he seemed overly upset over the whole affair. He ranted somewhat bitterly about school, people, and society at large. It seemed as if he wanted to blame everybody but himself for the way things turned out.

My friend might have been dealing with feelings of social inadequacy or career anxiety. However, I did not press him on these issues. Though I am usually annoyed by people who avoid accountability, I sensed here that I had to let go of my own selfish preferences and aversions.

I understood that the best thing I could do as a friend at that moment was to be "present" with him in whatever he was dealing with. One way that "presence" manifests itself is through the act of listening. To truly listen, it is not the type of listening you find in typical conversation, where people evaluate each other's statements and figure out how to respond. This type of listening is more receptive, it is listening without judgment and often without comment.

This distinction was crucial for me in the context of my friend's situation. I could not be fully "present" with him while I was judging him from the outside looking in. I had to let go of my annoyance at his lack of accountability so that I could be "present" with him in his current difficulty.

Listening without judgment is a deeply therapeutic form of communication. This type of listening gives the other person space. So many conversations devolve into negativity because of this lack of space. The majority of people are suffocated by the constant stream of noise coming at them, which subtly chips away at their sanity. A badly timed comment can interrupt a person's train of thought and, with it, the person's sense of well-being.