Friends with Benefits

My friend asked me, “So you spent half the night with a prostitute?” Then he chuckled and added with the wryest of all smiles, “I’ve heard of friends with benefits.”

No need to go into all the details of what this particular lady of the night and I did for half the night. I have already written the details previously in this column (March 19, 2023 - A Different View of Ladies of the Night. All full subcribers can find it in the Hometown Stories archives.)

I was born May 1, 1958. Or so they tell me. I can’t seem to recall a thing about it.

I have lived a long and (relatively) good life. Yes, I have suffered the painful slings and arrows of misfortune along the way. (Haven’t we all?) Yet I feel somehow that my life could not have been more enriched than the one I have lived.

And I’ll tell you the secret in one word.

Friends.

As best I can, I strive to develop friendships - real, meaningful friendships - with as many people as I can.

Much of the modern research in social science, plus good old-fashioned time-tested common sense, tell us that the more meaningful relationships we have in our lives - the more fulfilling and happier we live out our time on this planet. Perhaps nothing (with the possible exception of our health, both physical and mental) is more important to our living what most people would call a “good life”.

I love all my family, both immediate and extended kin. I really do. But not every single one of them has always been the most wonderful of friends. However, those family members who somehow have been both kin and true friends have made for one of life’s greatest treasures - kinfolk who I would have chosen as friends, even were they not related to me in any way.

My uncle, Charlie Lowry, was a perfect example of this. He was 42 years older than me. Yet we were not only kin, we were the best of friends. Charlie made it to see almost 93 summers.

As he lay in home hospice, Charlie whispered to me, “Ben, you know I don’t mind dying. What has hurt me most the last few years is that I’ve missed so many of my friends. Most all of them have already died before me.” Then he paused before he spoke again. More sincere and heartfelt words I have never heard. He looked straight at me and said, “I want to thank you for being a friend to me.”

And if people far older than us can be true friends, then why not far younger as well?

As a lifetime elementary school teacher, I sought to be a true friend to every child I ever taught (and I still do). To say I couldn’t, or shouldn’t, be friends with children sounded like nothing but nonsense to me. I held their respect, sure, but I was also their true friend. Looking back, I think it was undoubtedly the one most substantial thing that allowed me to “connect” so well with all my students.

As time has done its dance on me, I would rate friendship love - true friendship love - even above romance. But would I do so if I were a young lad again and infatuated with that sweet brown-eyed girl? Not hardly. Nor should I. Romantic love has its time and place. And there is nothing quite like it, either. If our moms and dads hadn’t gotten a twinkle in their eye when young, we would not be here.

Facebook tells me I have nearly five thousand friends. I have met all but maybe five hundred of them in person. I am good “real life” friends with maybe a thousand, a number I am told is quite a lot compared to most people.

But what about “true blue” friends, the kind I could call up right now and tell my darkest secrets? Alas, maybe they are not beyond a handful at most.

Or at least that’s what I originally thought - and was often told for much of my life; that true friends were few in number for us all. I have come to the conclusion that I am blessed with more than a few. The fact is I already do share and tell many of my deepest darkest secrets on Facebook posts and within this Hometown Stories column. No, not all the time, no. But at times when I feel “so led”, I do. I feel certain this “open vulnerabilty” and sharing of my deepest life experiences has led me to develop a sometimes surprisingly close friendship with many people who read the words I type - including many whom I have never even met in person.

Thank you for reading my words here this week, my friends.