I had just finished walking out of the movie theatre after watching I Love You, Man when my friend turned to me and asked what I thought of it, expecting to hear something about the actors or the plot. To my surprise I found myself asking the question, "What is true friendship?" Though the movie touched on many different topics this was at the forefront of my mind.

The film "I Love You, Man" is about two friends who bond on a deep level over topics such as their sexual activity, intimate details of the women they have been with, their ambitions and careers and jobs and their strengths and weakness'. It is lame in parts -perhaps by intent- but it also hilariously funny elsewhere. And it has a point: being friends with someone on a deep level does mean getting to know the other person in many different contexts and ways. To me the most significant part of the movie (SPOILER ALERT!) is that the main character Peter lends eight thousand much-needed dollars to his newfound best friend Sydney not only as a gesture of goodwill but out of trust. It is equally significant that Sydney spends that money to try and make Peter successful.

Confucius speaks of five different bonds of friendship that are a part of life. The first four are for the sake of society: father and son, ruler and minister, husband and wife, and older and younger brother. The fifth bond is that of friendship, both non-hierarchical and voluntary. In an insightful article on friendship Norman Kutcher speaks of this fifth bond in the context of the Confucius culture and stresses three things- that it was a friendship people were wary of because of its capacity for going wrong, also because of its egalitarian contrast to the role of authority in that culture, and that it was a friendship considered fleeting and evasive.

(see http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/105.5/ah001615.html)

I understand well Kutcher’s conclusion concerning the response of cultural influence that Confucius speaks of. Confucius stressed law, order, authority and structure in everything. He then, however, deviated from this position and offered that a friendship is possible if based on equality and free choice. To anyone living under the rules of Confucius this might present not only a big change but a big risk.

I tend to love Confucius more than most people and in the context of my own life with its intervening rules and regulations I also have found friendships can be a scary proposition because of their capacity to go wrong (though admittedly for the most part I’ve been the one to make them go wrong). I have often considered friendship difficult because there is no authority role defined in it, plus it can be fleeting. Does this mean that such a friendship is impossible? No. It is something that I pursue continually and feel the need for. The Bible offers insightfully in Proverbs 27:10, "Better is a neighbor who is near than a brother far away" and in Proverbs 18:24, "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." I read in this that friendship can transcend any other relationship, especially that within a family.

And that amazes me.

To allow oneself to be under the sway of another person to the extent that Confucius implies is risky. Few want to be that vulnerable. When Sydney asks for eight thousand dollars in I Love You, Man, I gasped and thought it would split the relationship in two (I rarely ask for any money or favors from friends). When Peter, himself being in need of money, decides to grant Sydney his request, I figured they would end up never speaking to each other again.

Blood is thicker than water- so we say and believe. Many have found out of personal experiences that friends come and go but family stays. This is the way many will feel on their deathbed. But I for one don't want to stay in that mindset for the rest of my life. I want to stretch myself, my hopes and my dreams and I want to believe that there are friends out there who can mean a lot to me and with whom I will keep in contact for many years and have many things in common. I have started on several friendships that have the potential to go deeper and time will tell. Without hopes and dreams there is no fulfillment. With hopes and dreams there is possibility. It starts with a yearning for more, a dissatisfaction with the present, and a hunger for greater intimacy. I don't want to be in the same place a year from now but I will be if there is no desire for something or someone better.