Senior year is a time of grad school applications, final papers, and secret betting pools on what couples will split up. Senior year is a minefield for pairs, since most seniors in relationships are carefully trying to avoid too much discussion of where they\u2019ll be next year. Friends are quick to speculate about whether he\u2019ll regret it if he gives up that fellowship so he can live near her job. We feel the need to gossip about how crazy she is to stay with her girlfriend since the job market near the girlfriend\u2019s law school is terrible.<\/p>\n
We recognize that people who are dating seriously should make major decisions in light of the decisions of their partner, but we afford few other relationships the same degree of gravity. Luckily, my boyfriend and I don\u2019t need to worry, since he\u2019ll be finishing his senior year at Yale next year while I get my master\u2019s at Yale\u2019s school of public health, but I don\u2019t really feel like I\u2019ve been exempted.<\/p>\n
Since I\u2019m staying at Yale, it\u2019s already pretty much certain that I won\u2019t be able to live with or near my friend and roommate Sarah next year. Even if it were possible, no one would attach the same level of expectation or importance to our ability to coordinate our post-graduate lives as we do to couples.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is kids\u2019 preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults \u2014 teachers and counselors \u2014 we try to encourage them not to do that,\u201d said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. \u201cWe try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/p>\n In recent years Timber Lake Camp, a co-ed sleep-away camp in Phoenicia, N.Y., has started employing \u201cfriendship coaches\u201d to work with campers to help every child become friends with everyone else. If two children seem to be too focused on each other, the camp will make sure to put them on different sports teams, seat them at different ends of the dining table or, perhaps, have a counselor invite one of them to participate in an activity with another child whom they haven\u2019t yet gotten to know.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s particularly healthy for a child to rely on one friend,\u201d said Jay Jacobs, the camp\u2019s director. \u201cIf something goes awry, it can be devastating. It also limits a child\u2019s ability to explore other options in the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jay Jacobs doesn\u2019t seem to understand that a friendship whose loss wouldn\u2019t be at least a little devastating wasn\u2019t much of a friendship to begin with. For whatever reason, our culture is persistently defining friendship down.<\/p>\n Denied the option of using friendship to denote intense bonds, I suspect some of the perverse \u2018marriages\u2019 featured in yesterday\u2019s post<\/a> may cling to the term at least in part to try to communicate that their relationship has worth. \u00a0The high profile fight about gay marriage, with all its attendant focus on the unique and essential relationship enshrined in marriage is probably accelerating this trend.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t a reason to oppose gay marriage, but it does behoove supporters to think about what can be done to curb this excessive regard for marriage and romantic relationships in general. \u00a0I still think civil unions for everyone<\/a> would be a step in the right direction, but I\u2019m at a loss as to what else I should be doing. \u00a0Any suggestions?<\/p>\n For a Catholic perspective on reviving friendship, check out Eve Tushnet\u2019s essay \u201cRomoeroticism<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0Oh, heck, just check out all of Eve Tushnet<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n This post is the last in a series on gay marriage. \u00a0Check out all posts in this series at the gay marriage index. Senior year is a time of grad school applications, final papers, and secret betting pools on what couples will split up. Senior year is a minefield for pairs, since most seniors in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[195,85],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage-2","tag-friendship","tag-gay-marriage"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_b7Eh98KJ_qI\/TGWGYELtOeI\/AAAAAAAABCE\/LjWNvBklyu4\/s200\/bestfriends.jpg\")
<\/a>We regard the separation of friends as perfectly natural. When students are younger, we urge them not to choose a college based on staying together with a high school friend. I\u2019d try to take this to a reductio ad absurdum<\/em>, but the real world beat me to the punch. In an article in The New York Times<\/em><\/a>, some parents were pleased to see a departure from the old practice of having \u2018best friends.\u2019<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/4256452356987023523-5014366982487437341?l=www.unequally-yoked.com\")