Friendship

[Adam Blatner]

thoughts on social integration, responding to Diana's email:

    Ah, how little we know. I wonder about the following:

Might Person A with 3 groups of 15 people and 4 people at the aquaintance level find that 
sufficient? No really "close" friends.

How close of friendship do people need? Many folks don't like much psychological 
self-reflection or disclosure and seem to do okay. There may be some trends in gender 
differences, too.

Back to Person A. In 2 of those group affiliations, A feels she plays a meaningful role, 
feels needed and appreciated. In one she's a secretary, in 2 she's a treasurer. In neither 
is there much discussion of personal matters. If someone gets sick, they send a card, but 
that's about it. Genuine liking, but not very deep. Still, might that be quite sufficient?

Person B really wants deep intellectual communion and has a hard time finding it. He is 
affiliated with 4 groups of acquaintances, and feels somewhat socially integrated, yet 
unfulfilled.

Person C is "enmeshed" with her spouse. This seems to be a healthy relationship so far. 
Has a few friends and that's about it. Some extended family.  Is it enough?

These kinds of scenarios and others you might think of address at a more psychodramatic 
level the problem of sociological generalities. Differences in need, defensive patterns, 
temperament, access, what levels of expectations have been developed, who is the reference 
group, etc.--all play a part.  I used to think of myself as a relative isolate because I 
wasn't popular around the 10th grade, but in retrospect, I realize the kinds of pals I had 
were okay, and popular as a term referred to sub-groups that were more prominent socially 
in school.  Other kinds of sub-groups existed, and in more recent times have affirmed 
their right to exist, such as gay and lesbian teens.

     As Diana reports, the realm of email offers whole new constellations of relationships 
and degrees and types of reciprocity. For some, online gaming and other 
computer-associated phenomena may be in some ways isolating.

Then there's an interesting phenomenon, related to sociotelic connections.
   Person D has some general interests X, Y, & Z. but also a peculiar passion for Q.
        Online he has found a dispersed network of Q fans, and lately has spent a great 
deal of time corresponding. There are vague plans made for a conference of this odd 
special interest, involving actual travel and physical meeting. The nature of people 
interested in subject Q, and the subject material itself, introduces difficulties. Perhaps 
it's hard to carry one's collection or even photographs of it. (Q might be a shared 
experience of alien abduction, or lucid dreaming, or some other elusive subject.)
         And so forth.

Well, just some free associations about why in a larger sense I think becoming sensitive 
to the realm of tele and rapport and sociometry offers a major frontier in consciousness 
raising! We may not be able to pin down conclusions that easily, but there is so much to 
be sensitive to!
         (a parallel conversation on the dramatherapy listserve recently involved the idea 
of becoming sensitive to nonverbal communications.)

     warmly, adam

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Diana Jones" <dianaj at orgdev.co.nz>
To: "Ann Hale" <annehale at swva.net>; <socionoetic at yahoogroups.com>; 
<List at grouptalkweb.org>; "Grouptalk Discussion Group" <grouptalk at albie.wcupa.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 7:49 PM
Subject: RE: Friendship


> Hi Ann,
>
> Dr Jacob Moreno was reported in the New York times in 1933 estimating from
> his research that there were 10,000,000
> to 15,000,000 isolated individuals in America. Given his early research
> findings, how new are these recent findings?
>
> Last year, Lynne C. Giles et al of Flinders University in Adelaide,
> Australia, had their research reported in 2005 in NEW YORK (Reuters
> Health)under - 'Looking for the secret of a long life? Look closely at your
> friends. New research
> suggests that having a strong network of friends helps people live longer.'
>
> "Older people with better social networks with friends were less likely to
> die over a 10-year follow-up period than older people with poorer friends
> networks,"  Giles said. "Of course, that is not to say that social networks
> with children and other relatives are not important in many other ways,"
> Giles said. Study after study has shown that elderly people who are
> connected with lots of people tend to live longer lives. Giles's team set
> out to examine the relationship between various types of social networks and
> longevity in a group of almost 1,500 Australians who were at least 70 years
> old. Volunteers answered questions about their social networks and then were
> followed for 10 years.
>
> The researchers took into account several factors that could have influenced
> how long a person lived, including sex, age, health and smoking status.
>
> What the study showed was that older people who reported better social
> networks of friends were more likely to be alive at the end of the study
> than people with fewer friends. Similarly, people who reported strong
> networks of confidants -- people with whom participants shared a close,
> confiding relationship -- tended to live longer. Full article in the Journal
> of Epidemiology and Community Health, July 2005. full reprint at
> http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/reprint/59/7/574
>
> I think people have more connections with more people via email and txting,
> however the nature of these connections are new. Email enables more frequent
> contact with more people, however what remains unclear is the signficance of
> these connections with people's social and cultural atom. Are they
> strangers, aquaintances, entertainers, friends, confidants, intimate
> partners?  I know I get a lot of email from strangers offering odd things
> which I don't want. No mirroring or doubling in these emails.
>
> regards, Diana
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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