The Art of Companionship

“Wherever you have friends that’s your country, and wherever you receive love, that’s your home.”

~Dalai Lama

I’ve always been introverted and shy.

Despite this, I’ve not considered myself a loner.

I’ve developed a few good friendships. I’m able to interact socially and find people interesting. I love the process of getting to know people and getting to be known.

But I have been lonely. Especially as life moved from college to work, marriage, and family.

Friendships fell away. Life became more serious and hard. I felt like no one understood me or could understand me even if they wanted to. I felt like sharing the deepest parts of my struggle would reveal me as a fraud or worse.

The saddest part? This was true of even my closest relationships, including my wife. The first few years of our marriage were very good. However, some recent significant bumps in the road have forced us to take a hard look at our relationship.

We discovered that even though things were mostly good, we weren’t each other’s best friend. We weren’t companions on the journey of life.

We were both lonely. Maybe even loners. It didn’t help that she’s an introvert too.

Artificial companions

Though none of us want to admit it, we’re starving for companionship.

But it’s too vulnerable to seek others out because of the possibility of being rejected. So instead, we turn to our technology.

Our technology have become our constant companions—to the absolute joy of big tech. We spend every waking hour with them. We talk to them. We sleep with them. Our technology knows more about us than we know about ourselves. We even have chatbots that mimic human interaction online.

We turn to celebrities as companions too. We keep track of every detail of their lives on social media. We know them better than we know the members of our households.

We turn to our pets for companionship, too. We bask in their unconditional acceptance and love

There is an upside to all these relationships. We get to avoid the specter of rejection altogether. But the downside is that we deny ourselves the chance to engage in meaningful relationships with other people.

We’re caught between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. We yearn for the deep connections only other people can bring, yet we actively avoid the potential burden brought on by those same relationships.

We like our freedom. We like being able to make decisions and pursue life unfettered by the opinions or influence of others.

Our individuality and freedom are sacred. Period.

And if the price to pay is being a little lonely, so be it.

Here’s the problem…

We’re more anxious and depressed than ever.

We’re more self-absorbed than ever.

As a result, we’re more unhappy than ever.

We don’t know how to have civil conversations with each other.

We’re less neighborly.

We’ve lost the wisdom of our elders and now turn to Google for answers.

We overeat and overdrink to cope…and it’s killing us.

We’re stressed and exhausted.

And suicide has become a leading cause of death in the United States.

Too many of us have decided to sit on the sidelines of life, where it’s “safe.” But we’re discovering that the lonely fringes are far more dangerous than we realized.

As hard as it can be to be close to other humans, we need each other. We need to find our way back to each other.

Companions for the journey

So…after years of marriage to my wife, after a number of twists and turns, we’re finding our way back to each other.

We’re much better friends. Our intimacy has grown. We’re more vulnerable with each other.

We are learning the art of companionship. We still have a ways to go, taking note of the traits that make for good companions along the way.

Here’s what I’ve noted so far:

1. Companions open up to each other

For most of us, our days are filled with surface-level small talk. The often perfunctory greeting, “How are you?” is often met with a quick, “I’m fine, thanks.”

This can be true even among intimate friends or romantic partners. We all know what it’s like to be dismissed or shamed after sharing something deeply personal. It only takes one experience of this before we’re erecting impenetrable walls between each other. It hurts that much.

But walls are deadly for would-be companions. It may protect you from being hurt in the short-term, but it will also deprive you of the nourishment of deep emotional connection in the long run. Our desire for connection is not optional, it’s a real need

Open up to each other with compassion, patience, and non-judgement. Share your joys, your sorrows, and your longings. Allow your companion to see you as you are, not as you present yourself on social media.

If they’re still around after you’ve done that, you’ve found a true companion indeed.

2. Companions laugh with each other

They say laughter is the best medicine. But if you look around, few of us are laughing. We walk around, stone-faced. Our faces and our bodies are bearing witness to the heavy loads we’re carrying.

When we laugh, we give ourselves permission to put down the load for a while. Companions learn to do this together. They laugh freely and often. They bring out laughter in each other.

The two people who best embody companionship in my mind are His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In The Book of Joy, their friendship and mutual affection for one another shine for all to see. Not only are they joyful, they’re downright mischievous with each other, constantly poking fun at one another and laughing at themselves.

Who are the companions in your life that make you laugh? Treasure them for the gift they are.

3. Companions take turns being strong for one another

This famous chorus expresses what it means to be strong for each other beautifully:

Lean on me, when you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
‘Til I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on

Sadly, the wisdom of this great song has gone by the wayside. We’re taught from an early age that in order to get ahead, we must depend on ourselves. We glorify the myth of the self-made; people who bootstrapped their way to empires, fame, and acclaim.

But if they’re honest, these same people will tell you that they leaned on friends and trusted companions on their journey to success. They’ll tell you that they still have trusted companions who no one’s ever heard of.

Don’t believe the myth that you can go it alone. Lean on your companion when you need encouragement and support. Allow them to lean on you when they’re stuck.

4. Companions learn to be alone together

Some of the best dates with my wife have been to Barnes and Noble. We both love books. Every so often, we’d go there, grab books we like, sit, and read in each other’s company. We do this at home too.

Sometimes our nightly walks are done in silence too. We’re afraid of silence in relationships because we often fear it’s a sign that something is going wrong. But silence can strengthen bonds rather than weaken them.

The silence that naturally arises between companions instead of being viewed as a threat, can create as sense of safety. It is a silence that says, “I am safe to be alone in your presence.” It creates a sense of ease and comfort. You don’t always have to be “on” when you’re with your companion. You can just be.

5. Companions bring out the best in each other

Real relationships challenge us and help us grow.

While acquaintances or superficial friends may say things we want to hear in order to be liked or avoid conflict, true companions tell each other the truth.

And as we know, sometimes the truth hurts. However, our companions can often know us better than we know ourselves. They can see our blind spots. They can provide perspectives that help us broaden our understanding of the world.

If we’re willing to submit one another in humility, our companions will eventually bring out the best in us.

6. Companions forgive each other

When you’re in relationship with a close companion, there are three words you’ll need to get used to saying or hearing:

I am sorry.

In the inevitable push and pull of relationships, you can be assured that you’ll be provided opportunities to either give or receive forgiveness every day.

I’ve found this to be true in my life as I walk the road of companionship with my family. I’ve had to ask for forgiveness more times than I can count. It’s hard. It’s humbling. But it’s necessary to keep relationships alive and thriving.

As the Dalai Lama wisely said:

“Marriages, even the best ones—perhaps especially the best ones—are an ongoing process of spoken and unspoken forgiveness.”

7. Companions need space

Certain types of companionship, such as marriage, are exclusive. But relationships suffer when companions are overly dependent on one another for their needs. There must be space for partners to meet their individual needs through self-care and companionship with others.

A rich and varied life is one within community, and appropriate companionship outside marriage will only enrich the bond you hold with your partner. Even the best of companions need to be, not just alone together, but alone alone.

This can be a hard truth to accept, especially within marriage and long-term relationships. Like silence, the desire for alone time can spark fears of rejection.

Nobody writes more eloquently on this point than Rilke who said:

“A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.”

8. Companions love each other

And so we’ve come to perhaps the most important point of all; companions love each other.

The trickiness with this point is that love has become so sentimentalized that we hardly understand what it truly means to love.

Love is not primarily about feelings, though feelings are important. It’s not about goosebumps on the skin or butterflies in the stomach. Love is not soft or wishy-washy.

Instead, in the words of Anthony De Mello, love is:

See[ing] a person, a situation, a thing as it really is, not as you imagine it to be.

When you can see your companion as they are and accept them without trying to conform them to your image, you are loving them. When you desire what is best for them rather than using them to get what is best for you, you are loving them.

Go it together

Are these states hard to achieve? Yes. Maybe even impossible.

Might it seem easier to go it alone instead? Sure, for a time.

But you were made for more than yourself. You were made for relationship.

My life partner and I are still navigating what it means to be good companions to each other. Because companionship is an art, not a science. There are missteps and setbacks. However we keep pressing forward, deciding each day to go it together and not go it alone.