The Lost Art of Lingering

“[Friendship is] not about what someone can do for you, it’s who and what the two of you become in each other’s presence. .. The notion of doing nothing but spending time in each other’s company has, in a way, become a lost art,’ replaced by volleys of texts and tweets, Mr. Sharp said. ‘People are so eager to maximize efficiency of relationships that they have lost touch with what it is to be a friend.’ By his definition, friends are people you take the time to understand and allow to understand you.

- “Do Your FriendsActually Like You?” Sunday Review, New York Times

The first time I was aware of Dave’s existence was when I read a blog post he had written about the lost art of lingering. It struck a chord because I was efficient and task-focused to a fault: if hanging out with you doing something without aim wasn’t going to benefit my resume or what I needed to get done (and I could never see how it could), I didn’t see the point. An attitude which got me into a great grad school but into deeper and deeper isolation. Dave’s post found me around a time when I realized I may have gotten all the right things on the outside, but life on the inside was pretty lonely and unhealthy without true friends. Turning that around changed my life.

Now we’re in a different stage of life. Finding friends after thirty is tough: people have kids and disappear. They move around to follow careers or spouses or schooling. They hit the suburbs and get enclosed in enclaves—school groups, soccer leagues, church circles—that promote superficial connection and identity without pushing for anything deeper. Then there’s social media, which promotes friendship as image, self-gratifying connection, selective exposure. Pretty much the opposite of hanging out to hang out. Psychologist Robin Dunbar is quoted in the article as saying we only have five slots for high-quality friendships, which is a laughable contrast to the hundreds of “friends” folks have on Facebook.

The fact is, you have to be intentional about finding community when you have an absorbing career or family. Especially family—it’s easy to become so absorbed in your kids you feel you can never leave them, or not want to pay for childcare, but we’ve found it’s worth it. We leave the kids to go to small group, meet up with other couples; we arrange playdates when that’s not possible. All that structured community is okay, and necessary.

But I feel like the best friendships come not through planning or production, but something more natural and organic. They happen almost when you’re not looking: you’re just being. You’re looking at something else together. And in it, you’re revealing yourself, and understanding the other person.

So sometimes, it’s just about having space for the unexpected. Being open to being uncomfortably vulnerable. Being okay with mess or hassle. Being generous with your time. Being forgiving with faults. Enjoying instead of analyzing. Doing together instead of alone.

Have you ever noticed how kids are champion lingerers? We’re always telling them to hurry up, get their shoes on, finish eating, come on, come on—because they naturally linger. They ask follow-up questions even when it’s time to go. They stop to look at something interesting even when it’s not the point. They get excited about someone else’s ideas and doing stuff together.

I’ve loved that about this summer: it’s really been a golden summer, watching all four hang out together in a way they never have before. Unlike the school year, they get to do everything together—eat, play, do lessons, nap—without the usual hard timeline. In a way, they have a purer friendship now than they may ever have in the future. They’re changing each other, and bringing things out of each other no one else could have, without even realizing it. I still have to remind myself: linger with the kids instead of getting other stuff done! Hang out with Dave just to enjoy being with him. Set aside time to do that with other friends. With God. Somehow that instinct to linger gets bred out of us, but I look at them and see that without the time and margin to hang out that way with someone, I’m missing out.