When My Friend Said He Loved Me

1 Aug

Written by James Burke, Australia

He told me he loved me.

The words were as unexpected as they were welcome. It’s not that I’d been dreaming about hearing them for days, weeks, or any particular amount of time. I knew I loved him, and was fairly sure he felt the same way, but hearing the words for the first time still caught me by surprise.

Now, I should probably clarify: I’m not a stereotypical love-struck teenager in the throes of my first serious crush. Neither am I playing the dating game, trying to find that special person. I’m a father of two in his mid-30s who has been happily married to my wife for 15 years.

That’s what made this so special.

The he in this case was one of my closest friends. By this point in time we’d known each other for nearly two decades, and though our friendship had fluctuated between closeness and what could be better described as a vague “I think I remember who that guy is”, the last 10 years had seen us grow closer and closer. Close enough to where he, as a heterosexual Aussie bloke, was comfortable enough to say “I love you” to me, a heterosexual Aussie bloke.

The Curse of Distance

My friend and I met at a Christian camp when we were both in high school. Those camps were a twice-yearly occurrence for me. My friend, on the other hand, attended once and never returned. And although we didn’t actually spend that much time together on that one camp, it was enough that we began to know some of the same people, and hang out in the same places.

Those same places were online. He lived a good three hours away from me, and over the next 10 years, we probably only bumped into each other in person once or twice (including once by extreme accident at the midnight premiere of Star Wars Episode III – he had booked tickets and driven down only to end up sitting a row in front of me). But the places we hung out online were places that encouraged sharing; first a forum for young Christians, then on social media, then in online games. Enough sharing took place that we ‘knew’ each other, and when we started interacting online a decade after meeting, there was enough shared history for a friendship to grow.

Even though we still lived hours apart, we grew closer as our lives began to follow similar pathways – we married within a year of each other, and he and his wife learned they were pregnant at the same time my wife and I had our second child on the way. And as more things in common began to be shared, the friendship grew deeper – both through sharing memes, Youtube videos and various nerdy interests, as well as talking about fatherhood, raising small humans, and faith.

But as much as we emotionally grew closer, the physical distance between us has always remained, and has only gotten larger to this day.

Friendship is usually something that is built by proximity and time. My friend and I have had time–plenty of it, at that–but proximity is something we’ve lacked. The people you interact with the most (perhaps outside your family or partner) are usually the people you’re physically closest to; local friends, church members, colleagues, etc. That proximity allows friendships to grow and deepen through all of those incidental shared times; impromptu meals or hanging out, borrowing things off each other, and sharing hobbies together. But he and I have never been able to have that.

The Blessing of Intentionality

Without the natural rhythms of life bringing us into shared spaces together, my friend and I have had to create those spaces intentionally. The more we spent time interacting online, the more intentional we became about actually choosing to share with each other. Public interactions turned to private conversations, and surface-level engagement turned to deep and personal sharing. We knew there was a friendship there, and we knew we had to nurture it.

Little by little, we began to let each other further into our lives. Our wives both encouraged it – they could see the benefit of having someone in a similar stage and state of life who understood the challenges and daily tedium that come hand in hand in the middle of your life.

We shared with each other more of our pasts, more of what had shaped us, and the things we were facing and struggling with. We shared what we’d been learning at church or Bible study, the challenges toddlers brought to our lives, what it means to be a husband and a father, and how to best love both our kids and our wives. And, through this sharing, our friendship developed and solidified.

I believe it’s the intentionality that brought about a friendship this close, closer than I have with guys I see regularly in person; guys who I have “been through” more of life with, but whose friendships have never developed as deeply. The intentional decision to share my life and my thoughts with someone I trusted gave way to a friendship that solved a problem I’d faced on and off throughout my life.

Being Vulnerable On Purpose

Growing up, I was a big personality. I was the guy up-the-front in church, a musician, a camp leader, and a student representative at school. I knew a lot of people, and I loved the fact that my social circle was spread far and wide. My wife was less of a fan of this, as we would often arrive at a party, visit a friend’s church, or attend an event, only for me to keep bumping into people I knew from various places. But I loved that I was well known.

At the same time, though, I struggled with the fact that while I had hundreds of ‘friends’, the number of people who knew me on a deeper level could be counted on a single hand – including my wife. In being the well-known, outgoing guy, I’d put up unintentional barriers that meant I wasn’t vulnerable with people, and didn’t let them in as much as I could or should have. As a result, as life and circumstances changed, ‘close friends’ drifted away with little or no contact – something I still mourn to this day.

But my friendship with this friend, online as it is for so much of the time, showed me what I had been missing. By not being vulnerable or willing to let people in, I hadn’t given them a chance to know me as I really was; the person behind the persona I’d created myself to be in public.

We’ve all been created with a desire to be known, to be understood, and to have people that “get us”. But that kind of intimacy in relationships and friendships doesn’t happen without vulnerability. And if that vulnerability isn’t offered up by someone first, other people often won’t feel comfortable to be vulnerable in return.

By keeping our guards up, we hold ourselves back from sharing openly, which can also make us miss out on friendships that can build us up and support us through the twists and turns of life.

Those Three Little Words

The day my friend told me he loved me was just like any other day. Like most days, we exchanged memes, links, and banter on messaging apps, peppering our daily conversations with both humour and humble truths. We’d gotten to the point of our friendship where we’d been open about the real and difficult struggles we both faced in our lives, and were able to share those things as they came up in life. And after I shared something, and our text conversation began to wrap up, he said he loved me.

Perhaps knowing that those words required a bit more of an explanation, he shared how he’d been musing on the way we often don’t verbalise the things we take for granted. There was no doubt on either side of the friendship that we love each other, but neither of us had ever said it. He shared about how he’d been encouraged by listening to two other men on a podcast finish up the episode by saying “I love you” to one another, because people don’t hear that enough – especially guys.

It hit home for me, especially as a follower of Jesus. He was quite clear in His instructions that to love God is the greatest commandment (Mark 12:29-30), and that we are to love our neighbours as ourselves (Mark 12:31). I knew the encouragement it brought to my spirit any time someone outside my family told me they loved me. Why was I holding that back from the people I loved? And so saying “I love you” became part of my vocabulary to my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and those close to me.

Intentional Doesn't Mean Easy

It’s not to say that this is a perfect example of how friendship should be. My friend and I annoy each other, we have differing opinions on various matters, and hold different values in parts of our lives. Our friendship hasn’t come about because we’re similar, or entrenched in the same social ecosystem. A lot of the time, the distance is frustrating, and there’s so much we miss out on because of it.

But that is not to say intentionally deciding to be open, honest, and vulnerable has only had to come about because we don’t share the same locations. It’s just as vitally important in making friendships and relationships grow and deepen, whether or not you see that person face to face regularly.

There are plenty of people who I do see regularly, who I have tried to open up to, only to have that not be reciprocated, essentially limiting how strong that friendship can become. I still like these people; I still want to spend time with them, and I make an effort to do so, but it is not quite the same.

Choosing to love goes a long way.

Love doesn’t always mean “being supportive” or enjoying the good times together. It sometimes means asking the hard questions, or pulling the brakes on our friend’s wild idea. It sometimes means giving of ourselves when that’s the last thing we feel like doing; whether that’s giving time, headspace, emotional energy, or physical help. But to love a friend is to journey with them, whether or not we’re 100% in the space to do so.

Paul’s letter to the Galatians puts this brilliantly: “Carry each others’ burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). He’s not asking us to walk alongside our friends when it’s easy and there’s nothing weighing us down. Instead, he calls us to help those people with the burden they’re carrying – to come alongside and journey closely with them.

There are plenty of times where I’m not in the right headspace to carry someone else’s burden – it can feel like I have enough of my own to deal with. But to love in this way is to love not just when it’s convenient. We only have to look at our Saviour to see a perfect example of loving selflessly.

While most of us aren’t going to be called to lay down our life for our friends (even though that’s considered the greatest display of love – John 15:13), giving over and above what is easy or simple is an amazing way to mirror Jesus’ love to each other. And what better friendship could there be to model?

Respond: I’d encourage you to think about your friends and those who you’re close with. How can you do something intentional to show them you love them this week?

To hear more of James’ story, listen to his podcast episode ‘How One Journey With Mental Illness Sparked Anxious Faith’ or read another of his blog posts, ‘When Your Friends Don’t Get It: The Story That Led to Anxious Faith’.