Why the Friendship Barriers?

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE
Of the editorial page staff
Published by the StarTribune

December 30, 1961

   I HAVE in mind a few dozen couples I wish my wife and I knew better. If, during the year ahead, we could get them on our social circuit we'd be well pleased. We're on jovial terms with folks we like very much, nearby residents and people we meet in church, at PTA meetings and parties.
   But the chance of enlarging the area of close friendship during the next 12 months isn't particularly bright. We'll doubtless remain in the same familiar groove and run with the same old crowd.

   WE'RE TOO busy and preoccupied to do otherwise. So is everybody else who's lived in one place long. It's convenient and enjoyable, a custom less taxing than extending invitations to persons who have never been inside the house. But time is more the villain than habit.
   To know the Whites better, you must invite them over to dinner or an evening of bridge and dessert. But if this cultivation of new friends isn't kept within bounds something has to give. There aren't enough evenings to go around, unless you jettison your old buddies.
   Social climbers, in their struggles to attain eminence, don't hesitate to do this. But they are a sparse breed, praise be, and confined almost entirely to ambitious young sprouts eager to know the right people and who haven't yet attained a true sense of values.

   STILL, though old friends are beyond price, it's nice to enlarge the scope--and too bad that the process is so time-consuming and shackled by form. Back in a far yesterday you could invite the Whites over on the spur of the minute for nothing more sophisticated than coffee and conversation. You could even pay them an unannounced call. You can't now. This informal technique can even estrange close companions.
   You invite the Whites over a couple of weeks in advance, being very specific about arrival time so they won't catch you vacuuming the carpet. You plan decor, food and diversion with all the care of a general mapping battle strategy.
   Since you can't do this often without killing yourself, you seldom do it at all. The result is that many potential friendships never flower and strangers have a tough time putting down roots. If they could drop in for cheese and crackers they'd have it made.

   IV'E DONE my share of yapping about church but am not blind to church benefits, one of which is sociability. Those who dismiss the church as "the poor man's country club," impress me only slightly.
   The criticism is partially true, if it qualifies as criticism, but just what's wrong with church being a social center? If that isn't one of its functions then I've missed the message. I've found many of my best friends in a "poor man's country club." So have thousands of others.

   THE ONLY contact my wife and I have with a lot of people we're fond of comes on Sunday in church. I have some misgivings about the destiny of my soul but none about such contacts.
   If "having folks in" had not become such a protocol-encrusted flap, a lot of people we'd like to have as close friends would become just that. If you're one of those we'd like to know better, if cheese and crackers aren't beneath you and you don't mind a place with a "lived in" look, drop around and give friendship a chance.


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