Refrigerator Rights

My husband went to a church conference a few weeks back and brought home a book called "Refrigerator Rights" It's about how our culture and the media and our ability to move and travel has created a world in which we, as a whole, have very few friends in our lives with 'refrigerator rights', "This odd-sounding label refers to people who can comfortably open each other's refrigerators, scan the contents and then help themselves, all without breaching etiquette. It's a homey symbol for a relationship that has crossed a critical line of intimacy."

In the book he talks about how he truly believes that if people have more of these relationships, especially those within their communities, with people they see on a day-to-day basis, the need for psychologists, therapist, self-help books, drugs, etc would be reduced tremendously. Because true, intimate, friendships can help us through most of our issues.

He talks about how most friendships that fit within these descriptions are our college friendships. It's such a unique time in our lives and because we live among our friends and have no choice but to do day-to-day living with our friends, we build these relationships. And while this is great and fine and dandy... most of us move away from our college friends and how sad it is that the only friends we have like this are ones we see once a year.

This weekend with my "refrigerator rights" college friends was wonderful, though not even remotely long enough. I kinda long to not get on my plane today and to just stick around for another week so we can do it again next weekend. We ate together and went to the theater and drove around and bought fresh apples and drank wine and ate brie and roasted garlic and talked and talked and talked and bought fun (cheap!) books. (Dude, seriously, i'm coming back JUST for the book fair, tell me when it is again!).

With college friends, it always feels like you're coming home when you're with them. Even in the newest and most unfamiliar of places, being with friends is like being home. It's cozy and comfortable. It's the time when you can think about and talk about anything.

I love this. And while new friendships will never replace these golden friendships, I long for this in my daily live now. Don't get me wrong, I have friends in my life now, quite a few actually. But very few of those even come close to reaching that level of intimacy. There are all kinds of reasons, one being the simple fact that it takes time, and another big one being that our stage of life makes it harder, with more people being married and having kids.

I'm only a few pages into this book, trying to read it at the same time my husband is reading it, but the concept fascinates me. Not only because it's so true, but also because it satisfies my interest in sociology (I've always thought that if I didn't do the creative thing in college, I would have majored in sociology, it surprises everyone when I tell them. I should have minored in it, because when will I get that chance again?)

The book will go into how we can purposely form those friendships, how they don't have to 'just happen' the way our college friendships did. I will aim to do this, somehow.

*speaking of friends, I have a new link in my sidebar. mymulberrystreet.blogspot.com. Go there to see lots of beautiful brand-new-baby photos. (Newborns are so amazing.) Ellen is someone I've known for a long time and have only somewhat recently started becoming real friends with, finding that often when we're leaving whatever project we're working one... we stand at our cars and chat, and chat, and chat.