“How many good friends do you have?” That was a question that was asked of me when I was visiting with a friend in Minsk, Belarus in 2000.
My friend asked be in the apartment of her friends Svetlana and Svetlana’s husband Petre, and they were all looking at me… patiently and quietly for my answer. They had been talking among themselves and suddenly my friend turned to me and all conversation stopped awaiting my answer.
“I would say four or five.” I replied. There was a pause. “How many could you drop in on unannounced at any time of the day or night?” This was beginning to feel like a trick (or at the very least, “loaded”) question… “Why… none.” I replied; feeling quite proud of the fact that I would NEVER impose upon my “close friends” like that… My friend turned to Svetlana and Petre and translated my reply since neither spoke English.
There was a pause… broad smiles all around… a head nod or two and then they all faced back to me. “Then you have no close friends.”, my friend informed me. I didn’t see that coming… I wasn’t quite expecting such a declaration (which at the time felt more like an accusation). They (the three of them) had trapped me in some kind of an admission of something which they had suspected about “us Americans”. They had won their battle (to prove a point of one sort or another) and were chattering in Russian about other things as I sat there a bit stunned. It was an awkward evening on the whole. My friend had grown tired of translating the conversation and for the rest of the evening I sat there politely nodding with a stupid grin on my face, pretending I had a clue as to what was being said (which I didn’t)… If I looked half as stupid as I felt… well… I must have looked like a Ringling Brothers reject… because I felt pretty stupid sitting there, abandoned in my language cocoon.
But the comment did make me think. And it made me reflect on the differences between our cultures. Where we would view NOT bothering friends, as a sign of friendship; they view BOTHERING friends as a sign of friendship… and they wear it like a badge.
In America, we have become a bit spoiled. Here, things work pretty much like they “should”. If you want to buy something… or if you need medical treatment… you go to the store, or the hospital (as the case may be), stand in line, plop your money down and you get what you want. Simple… In Belarus… it doesn’t work that way. In Belarus, you have to know someone. Your friend’s cousin’s friend’s father is a doctor and he can get you medicine because (no matter how thin) there is a personal relationship between you. No relationship? No medicine.
They are able to deal with their broken system through the strength of their personal relationships… it is necessary in their world. Our world? Hey… you can get by all by yourself… but I wonder if that is ultimately a strength in our culture or a weakness.
Sure… it is nice that things work as they should and everyone can basically get what they need and want (as long as they have the money)… but this also means we don’t NEED each other… we don’t need anyone; and I wonder if that isn’t a shame.
We have our lives… our television shows… our comfort (don’t interrupt my American Idol)… it is impersonal and (I believe) not very nourishing to our souls. They, on the other hand, hold the “group” in regard. Here, our independence is king. There, it is relationships which are prized above all else.
I have to believe that in our effort to be self-sufficient, we have also separated ourselves from others… and in so doing… from the vibrancy and the flow of life. We are social animals at our core and it seems a shame that we find ourselves living more and more isolated lives, where family and friends are viewed as inconveniences rather than nourishment, entertainment and the fortress within which we live.