The Platonic Ideal?

I'm not a man who believes in the existence of the ideal, metaphysical or otherwise. I don't think it's something we can accomplish on Earth and I'm there with Feuerbach that we should focus on the human aspect instead-what can we accomplish as men if we push ourselves to the limit? Nothing can ever reach perfection, but it's a worthy goal to see how much better you can become. As an extreme extrovert, I'm also someone who reflects a fair amount on his social relationships, thinking and overthinking these things.

So when my friend asked me if men and women could ever be Platonic best friends, I doubt she knew what she was getting into. It's an extremely interesting question and an impossible one to discuss without weaving in your own metanarrative, very difficult to stay impartial and leave out personal examples. Of course we didn't anyway, which certainly made it more colorful.

Personal gossip aside (yes, I learned from the whole LiveJournal thing in 8th grade), we came to some conclusions. Best friends are an interesting sort-it implies a ton of solo time together, a fair amount of family interaction, and a kind of devotion that is difficult to keep up with more than one person at a time. How can a man have a female best friend and a girlfriend at the same time? Other issues aside, it's an enormous time commitment that could really only be kept up in the utopian euphoria of high school or college where you might actually have enough leisure for that. One really can't develop both at the same time in the real world, unless there is the close coworker relationship. Like same project close.

Anyways, we aren't dealing with the common relationships of male and female best friends, we're looking at the fringes, the very possibility of the Platonic ideal. And, let's be honest with ourselves anyway, the vast majority of those friendships have at least one party (if not both) hopelessly in love with and serving the other anyway.

I think the very notion of the Platonic friendship stems from the idea that we can learn to sublimate our sensual side in favor of the spiritual, which in and of itself admits the way that nature really works here. I think that we can learn to sublimate certain things and trick ourselves, but eventually human nature prevails. Similar to the way that our most animal instincts will rear their ugly head in crisis and our tribal affiliations in times of war, the basic sexual attraction of men and women is difficult to permanently eliminate or "civilize."

Men and women constantly reevaluate those around them as potential partners, consciously or subconsciously, and best friends who really get to know each other often cross that line because they find they love the person as they get to know them. Those who manage to control this urge usually have a huge opportunity cost or deterrent to getting together-they're together with someone they love more, etc. Often times, the best friends I've seen as male/female pairings are those who've been together and realize they love each other but don't work romantically.

Still, I think it's ultimately impossible to do more than sublimate in these situations, it's an ideal we like to convince ourselves of because it's not really an option to be together, for whatever reason. As we age and pair off with life partners, it becomes extremely difficult to be friends with people that aren't also paired off into couples and it can spark huge issues when you hang out 1 on 1 with someone. It's painful to consider, but most of these relationships trail off into the sunset as we begin a life as a family, dedicating what used to be friend time to family time. Friendships are maintained through yearly trips, Fourth of July rituals, and Christmas cards, but they're never afforded the time you could give when you were single and your network of friends is powerless to avoid its inevitable decline.

A friend of mine once told me that you can never really be friends with the opposite sex, at least long term anyway. I think he's wrong, but there's some truth to the idea that those relationships are much more difficult to maintain. Like most things in life, we've got a fundamental inability to alter our circumstances; if we're lucky enough to understand them a little bit before they dramatically change, that's all you can ask for. Armed with foresight, you can at least set expectations. Even for the prematurely sagacious, life is full of surprises, wonder, and bemusement.

Memories in the Making

The last few months have seen a pretty significant number of hallmark events, memories, and soon-to-be epic stories that I could tangibly feel becoming family/personal lore as I was experiencing them. This kind of self-awareness is novel to me and I can't really recall when else I'd had this feeling except my college graduation a few years back.

The short-list of memories includes:

-Staying up all night for bro's graduation
-Post-graduation road trip across the US of A (Pittsburgh to LA in 36 hours, whoo!)
-Cousin's wedding and post-wedding bar hopping with family patriarchs
-Laker's championship and my attendance of Game 2 (the Courtney Lee layup)
-My parent's 30th wedding anniversary party and all the epic times that endured there

These are hallmark events as much for their context as much as their good times. Of course I'm going to remember the trip to see my brother graduate or my cousin get married-they're important people in my life and it will be something we can reminisce about for years to come-but there's a deeper reason why these memories will be the ones I focus on when I'm old and grey: the narrow windows in my life where I get to see these people.

I mean, and let's be honest with ourselves here, we see less and less people as we age. Once you have kids, forget about it - you maybe get a couple of escapes a year if you're lucky, but there is a steady growth throughout our lives in responsibilities and time commitments. After college, good lucky getting 4 months off every summer. Once you have a wife, fat chance you'll see your buddies 5 nights a week to gamble, watch sports, and shoot the shit. Add in the fact that many of your best friends and family members will disperse around the globe, requiring special trips to see them, and what chance do we have to really keep in touch long term?

My cousin's wedding was special because it tied two people who truly love each other together, but for me it was particularly special because I got to see family members I hadn't seen in nearly 10 years for the first time as an adult. It was the night of the reception that I first realized how truly small our window of interaction can be with people, even people that are critically important. I see my grandparents maybe 3x a year, for instance. As we age, that window gets smaller except for a select few that can stay in your inner circle. This realization dawned on me and I came to an important conclusion: carpe diem.

So cliche, I know, but far from trite. I mean carpe diem more narrowly than the traditional notion of living life to the fullest; to me, carpe diem is a mantra for maximizing the opportunities we have with the people around us and recognizing how limited they can be. At my cousin's wedding, I forced my family to go out after the wedding for some drinks and it ended up being a great story we'll tell at reunions for the rest of our lives. How many of these opportunities have we passed up in our lives only to realize the window for seeing our friends and loved ones was smaller than we once thought?

When I started work, I had a tight-knit group that started with me and we all seemed destined be one unit, hanging out all the time and really enjoying each other's company. Two years later, I feel I haven't made enough of an effort and am not nearly as close as I wish I'd been. Some of my friends have left and so has my opportunity to get to know them better. I'm not trying to lament about friends lost and friends made, we all make choices and have to live with them; rather, I'm trying to impress the importance of making the most of the chances we've got.

That's why I took the opportunity of my parent's 30th wedding anniversary this weekend to really make the best impression that I could with the guests I had never met or hadn't seen in years. I took the time to have short 5 minute conversations with people to get to know them and see who I am a bit. Obviously I couldn't talk to all 110 people, but I think I did about as well as could be expected catching up with people, meeting new ones, and generally trying to maximize that time while still enjoying myself and checking out the dance floor. And, you know what, I think they appreciated the effort too.