The Best Friends Are Honest Friends

When I'm on campus in Norman, students come by my humble office on a regular basis. They're usually seeking advice or an unflinching evaluation of their draft. Because of my position and my relative value to the department, my office is rather small. The students are always surprised by the state of my professorial domicile. It's a 7 x 7 cell, with peeling baby blue paint on thick concrete walls and two large windows looking out onto a parking lot. I have virtually no art or posters on the walls and only one bookshelf, ironically containing very few books. I don't mind it though. The space is primarily meant to use to meet with students or catch up on a little work in between classes. I'm lucky to have it and the space functions precisely as I need it to, with little embellishment.

One of my four walls isn't actually a wall at all. The office opens up to another, slightly smaller room occupied by my office mate. He carefully decorates his half of the office with desk ornaments, student-made art, and a bookshelf overloaded with a variety of texts that he doesn't have room for in his apartment. Papers are scattered around, there's usually a derelict container or open book on his desk, casually left behind for the night. We're something of an odd couple and we've shared an office four out of the 5 years I've been teaching at OU.

Most days, two other colleagues stop by our office and shoot the bull while enjoying brown-bag lunches in each other's company. It's a nice time to socialize with other adults while not having to perform the role of exuberant, enthusiastic adjunct professor in front of a classroom full of cynical, disaffected students. Our conversations range from bitching about grading essays to the odd similarity between raising small children and house pets. Make sure they don't break anything, make sure they eat something that isn't garbage, and be sure to help them use the bathroom periodically.

The other day, my office mate posted a picture to his Facebook timeline. The picture featured seven cardinal rules by which one should live their life. These kinds of things appear in my news feed often and they're largely unremarkable, but well-meaning. Most of the rules made sense, with the exception of #2- "What other people think of you is none of your business."

#8- Never, under any circumstances, should you ever

 be in the bathroom while your spouse is pooping.

For some reason, this rule didn't sit well with me. Why can't I know what other people think of me? This is my life. I'm the central character in my own journey. How oblivious of a life would it be if I never knew where I stood with people? I'd miss out on tremendous opportunities to learn about what behaviors sit well with folks and which ones might need rethinking.

Now, I think I understand the spirit of the rule. Essentially, I shouldn't live my life worried about seeking the approval of others. A life spent trying to please everyone else is a wasted life, full of insincerity and a constant fear of rejection even from those closest to us. Even if I could have special access to the inner space of my friends' minds, would I really want to know what feelings were locked away? I would hope most of the thoughts were positive, but what if they weren't? Wouldn't it be better to know than to live in a delusional state? I can't help but be curious what my friends and loved ones think of me.

Bleak truth #67- Reading too much Calvin and Hobbes 

 as a kid may have warped my mind.

On some level, we're all this way, whether our pride allows us to admit it or not. We carefully craft a reputation over the course of our lives, even if our reputation is desperately posing ourselves as someone who doesn't care what others think of them. To be sure, the opinions we value most are those belonging to the people closest to us. So, what about these three people who laugh, eat, and complain with me? They're my good friends. I know their successes and struggles. I know I value their opinion, but what if their opinion of me isn't obvious? This sensation to know, despite the risks, can be overwhelming at times.

A month ago or so, I heard a story on This American Life about a young man who set out to discover what his friends truly thought of him. You can read the transcript (Act II: The Hole Truth) here. The young man had a suspicion that all his friends thought he was "an asshole." If you're worried that label might apply to you, read my earlier post on the matter. The transcript above has a lot of great insights about reputation and confronting one's effect on others. One particular insight stuck with me. In one telling exchange, the young man asks his best friend why they're still friends, to which his friend coolly responds, "I don't know. Inertia?"

Apply liberally to the affected area as often as necessary until your wittle feelers don't hurt.

To be totally honest, hearing that from one of my friends would be crushing. But what would happen of we lived in a world where such honesty was practically impossible, except when it was in the form of a positive, glowing assessment? No one would ever know that their bigoted, hateful world view alienated others; they would just be "a product of their circumstances." Our overly opinionated friends who humiliate or scold us constantly wouldn't be called out for being "domineering assholes;" they would be referred to as "big personalities" with "a lot to say about most any topic." Irresponsible friends making bad personal decisions would be dismissed with a simple "she's just going her own way and she has to live her own life." Months and years would pass between friends and couples while resentment would build up because "Your selfish behavior hurts and upsets me," would be consistently muffled by neutral and ambivalent justifications of "We have a lot of history," and "he is who he is."

On the other hand, we live in a society where politeness and grace tend to save friendships more often than they're given credit. Discretion is the better part of valor and this is certainly true between friends and loved ones. Friends and loved ones often mask their feelings for us because of the ugliness that they predict would follow, or the fact that they still care about us, in spite of our egregious flaws. Perhaps they just can't find anyone better to spend time with. When someone has a tendency to drop the veil of politeness, we treat those people like they're time bombs that we have to hurriedly flee from or defuse. But should we? Or should we seek out healthy, honest evaluations from people who can provide valid assessments?

Maybe I'm missing out on my true calling here.

We can't compel those nearest and dearest to us to say anything they don't wish to say, positive or negative in nature, and there are plenty of thoughts that need never breathe the air of an open conversation. Our right to know doesn't trump their right to keep certain thoughts private. Nor should we encourage those "big personalities" in our lives to make a cottage industry of dressing-down their friends and partners.

What we should strive for is a balance between both being incisively and mercifully forthcoming with those we care about, while also being edifying and intuitively positive to the same. When the latter outweighs the former on the scales of our interactions with others, we live out a superficial, shallow sort of kindness that vanishes in a stiff breeze like a pile of dead leaves. When the former outweighs the latter, we bash others with our metaphorical hammers of criticism until our loved ones aren't much but a pile of dust, in our eyes.

Of equal importance, we shouldn't be afraid to know what other people think of us. We should avoid living our lives in constant search for their approval, as that too is a superficial, sad sort of way to exist. To be terrified of what our friends and loved ones truly think of us is like preferring the misshapen, false images of a fun-house mirror to seeing our own true selves, simply because living in an illusion is more enjoyable than facing reality.

Good luck out there this week. Perhaps you should ask someone close to you what they think of you -what they really think of you- and why you have the relationship that you have with them. Who knows what their answer might be? It might be deeply encouraging. It might be discomforting. It might just be inertia.