JUST CAUSE
By Johnny Mack
I start this article off by saying that when I first sat down to write this, I had complete and utter writer’s block. All some odd trillion-brain cells I had in my little tiny head could not come up with one topic of conversation or thought provoking idea to write about. That is until, I had a sequence of events that helped me come across today’s topic and it started with a touch of blue.
For weeks I had not been feeling “myself.” I would go to see funny films and not laugh, I seemed to be out of energy and always tired. Nothing interested me. I didn’t even want to spend time with friends, finding more solace in staying home and looking at the numbing –mindless-self-indulgence of the television or looking at online articles. From the standpoint of anyone looking at me, I was depressed. Weeks went by and it seemed as if I would never snap out of it. A few week’s later, I was sitting online chatting when my friend who I was chatting with, asked me if I was going over to a friend of ours place for game night. Before I could catch myself, I had already made an excuse as to why I couldn’t go. Before long people were calling me asking me, “Are you not/well why are you not going to,” to which the conversations ended with me claiming to just “think on it” before I decided not to join the gang on game day. However, the truth was I had already made up my mind, no matter what I was not going to join them on game day. Further more I was not going to join them for much of anything. As time went on, communication went from technical to non-existent. I was depressed, so I thought. Then it hit me, while I was lying in bed, eating ice cream, screening calls. I wasn’t depressed, I had began to subconsciously examine my relationships with everyone I knew. This epiphany made me sit up and wonder. If you have a relationship with someone, be it platonic or otherwise, can that relationship survive if there is no commonality? When it comes to relationships, do you have to have a reason in order for that relationship to survive?
-Webster’s Dictionary-
I began to look at the origins of my dilemma. Taking a que from Mr. Webster, I looked at the relationships I had built with these people and broke it down in to three categories of reasoning using the words very definition as my guide; Cause/justification, objectivity/logic and, sanity.
I. Cause/Justification
By the very nature of
the words, to have a justification/cause is to give a valid reason. So in
essence I was looking for the validity of my relationships. Some would say that
a relationship is valid because you have things in common with each other.
Whither it is general or obscure interest. Some say that a relationship is valid
because both the people involved elicit emotions from one another that is
normally not brought out by random people we may come in contact with. As I
examined this form of reasoning, my friend Scott and his boyfriend Jake, help
shed light on this part of my search.
I asked them the same basic question, When it comes to relationships, do you have to have a reason in order for that relationship to survive? While Scott had pointed out that I might just be evolving as a person and that I may just be “outgrowing” some of the people I have relationships with, Jake offered something up that at the time seemed somewhat logical. He began to tell me about his friendship with his friend Isaiah. In the beginning Jake and Isaiah met in kindergarten and from jump hated each other. No real reason at all, just a general mutual dislike for one another. As there years went on, the two became friends. “There was no reason why we were friends, we were friends just because we made each other laugh. We had fun together.” After hearing this, I was at a lost for words. I found myself thinking that maybe Jake was on to something. Maybe we didn’t need a just cause or reason to be in relationships with people, platonic or otherwise because it was just what it was. Then halfway through me processing Jake’s words to me and eating a slice of pepperoni pizza, it hit me like a ton of bricks, the logic in what he had said to me. If it were a snake, it would have bit me. It was in front of me the entire time.
II. Objectivity/Logic
Objectivity means to
concern oneself with the reality rather than the thought or emotion of a
situation. To have logic is to have a correct reasoning or the predictable
sequence of events. With this in mind, I began to think back on what Jake said.
Using logic, I came to a basic if not obvious conclusion.
Jake said that there was no reason behind his friendship with Isaiah, they were friends just for the sake of being friends. However, by his own admission, they did have a reason for being friends, because they enjoyed each other’s company. They did like each other at all in the beginning. No words had been exchanged, no actions, mingling, nothing, just a general dislike for one another. Yet as time went on, one of them said something funny that the other one found funny, did something silly that grabbed the other ones attention, something. The reason they were friends was because they made each other laugh. Once they discovered this about one another, it created a bond of friendship between them, hence the reason why they were friends.
III. Sanity
With two pieces of the puzzle completed, I next needed to find the sanity or mental soundness of it all. What was the reason behind me relationships with people. It was for my own personal sanity, that I wanted to know the reasons why I was friend with my friends. What the justification and logic to our friendships was, and if the relationship was conducive to my personal emotional well being; i.e. sanity.
I started with Scott and Jake, being as I had posed this question to them I
could see no better place to start. Scott I have known for a little over two
years, we meet through a then mutual friend/enemy (frenemine) Adam. Over the
next several months, we would hang out because he and Adam were roommates. Adam
and I had common friends and he would bring Scott along to join us when we went
to dinner, movies, bowling and such. When Adam moved, Scott and I managed to
stay in touch because we now had the same friends in common. Over time we built
our friendship by spending time talking just the two of us, doing things
together like joining a bowling league together, etc. Before long we had a
friendship. Over time the reasons changed why we were friends, from having just
one mutual person in common, to becoming acquaintances, to runaround buddies, to
playmates, to confiding deep dark secrets about one another. As time went on
Scott’s role in my life changed, he became a partner in crime, allies, someone
that when chips were down and I was all alone on the battle field, Scott became
one of the few people outside my family would stand by my side. Good or bad,
right or wrong, indifferent or otherwise, he would be there as I would be there
for him. On the other hand, his boyfriend Jake, I was friends with because he
was my best friend’s boy friend. Sure Jake is kind to me, but there is no real
level of deep friendship. We have a friendship based and completely depended on
our common relationship with someone else. If that relationship should fall by
the wayside, Jake and I would have very little in common outside of Scott and a
few general interests that most people have. For whatever reason, spoken or
unspoken, Jake and I have not made a huge conscious effort to build a
friendship.
On the other end of the
spectrum are people like Michael, JC, and Kyle. We are friends because we came
together because we all had one small thing in common. As time went on like
characters of a television show, we have evolved, some for the better some for
not. We have been there for each other in times in which no one else could be or
wanted to be. When Michael lost his home, Kyle took him into his home. I lost a
job and JC, Michael, and Kyle made sure I was never left out of group functions
by paying for me to go to movies, dinners and, such. When tragedy struck JC, we
saw him off to the airport, picked him up, and listened when he needed a
shoulder to cry on. We had transcended friendship and entered becoming a family.
Now as we are apart and not in contact like we should be, if one of us needs
anything, the others are right there to offer support and aid. Now knowing this,
I had realized that the reasons why I had relationships with these people was
because, we complimented each other. Also, there are different forms of
friendships. Some are closer than others, some become family, and some are not
even friends but just people you have a mutual respect for. I now questioned my
relationships because, I was beginning to change, as were they. In that change I
began to see that some of the change was good while some was not. Some of my
relationships with people were completely superficial and was mistaken for true
friendship. Some relationships had not even really been nurtured to see where
could they go and some, there was no real logic to them. Two people made each
other laugh and somehow, someway that was enough to sustain a
friendship/relationship.
In the end, reason is something that in life like most things, can be something that is so simple yet complex. It is hard to say if a relationship can survive without a reason. I guess one can argue that commonality in something so small can blossom into something that last. Some may even say that if you have nothing in common that it makes it difficult to keep the relationship alive. Maybe Jake was right, that sometimes there is no reason, relationships with people are just what they are, and in that, lies the reason.