Friendships: What’s the deal?

Many years ago, two of my friends and I joined together in a contract for a school project. Days after giving our word to each other, one of my friends, Coleridge (name changed) backed off and joined another group. It seems he buckled under the pressure thrust on him by his own friend. A year later, Coleridge confessed that he didn’t mean to desert the group but was under heavy compulsion.

In the confession Coleridge mentioned that his friend, Dawson wondered why he had joined us, hardly knowing us and reminded Coleridge that he shares better camaraderie with himself. As a final argument to convince Coleridge to leave our group, Dawson told Coleridge: it’s not like a legal agreement where you have signed on the dotted line. You can do what you want.

Dawson forgot a few basics about agreements. Let’s remind him about it. When I give my word to a friend, that fact that I don’t sign on a piece of paper only shows that I trust my friend. This ‘understanding’ of friendship reposes trust in one’s word and faith in each other which doesn’t allow anyone to drag the friendship to legal paper.

Hundreds of thousands of people everyday give their word, money and lives to their friends. The guarantee they give is their friendship. In stark opposition, when I take a loan from the bank, you put your house as guarantee for the bank cannot trust if you will run away with their money. The problem is of trust and it is fair. They cannot trust me and I stand to lose my house if I betray them. The same applies in friendship. We trust our friends and it would be silly and shocking for a friend to ask for a guarantee.

When you turn against your word because you think: I am not legally bound means you think you can break anything until you are not legally bound. What about being bound by friendship? Is that not reason enough to keep the oath? Breaking a legal agreement entails punishment which people dread. Turning against one’s word in friendship severs friendship which is a harsher punishment. For in the former case, it is easy to concede punishment on the body while in prison or a punishment in school. But is it easy for one whose sense of friendship has been scourged to love again?

My friend asked for forgiveness and after a year I had forgotten about the incident. But it’s one thing to ask forgiveness, it’s another thing to believe you have been forgiven. Often the shame of what one has done eternally plagues one’s mind. The courts dispense punishment which is atonement. After that it reconciles the criminal back into society as a citizen. But in friendship, is it easy to forgive or believe you have been forgiven?

If everything in the world was only bound by legality, nobody would be able to trust each other. The world would be a difficult and morose place to live in. No friends would keep secrets. If someone took counsel in another and reminded that he said the words in confidence, the other could betray saying: but I wasn’t legally bound, was I? It seems in such a damned world, there is greater regards for bonds of legality than of friendship.

Sharing something in confidence is an act of surrender. It is an expression of free will. My friend is bound by friendship but not enslaved by it for he believes in friendship and in keeping secrets. If my friend keeps secrets as he is bound legally but doesn’t believe in keeping secrets, he is a slave to the law. Friendship frees while the law oppresses.

Dawson suggested to Coleridge that he may break the word given to us as he is not legally bound. Paradoxically, it tells more about the understanding of friendship of Dawson’s of the world and what their own friends can expect from them.