Mutuality In Friendship

There is far more talk within egalitarian circles about mutuality within marriage than there is about mutuality within non-marital friendships.  Just like marriage, friendship is only ideal when it is grounded in the mutual commitment, love, and honesty of both parties.  In fact, since a friendship is by definition a relationship of affection between two people, all friendships require some degree of mutuality to even exist at all.  Mutuality is thus the foundation of all actual friendships.

At the core of friendship is a commitment on the part of both parties to the other.  This does not mean that one friend will not need to "carry" the other (or the relationship as a whole) through a particular time of difficulty or emotional exhaustion, nor does it mean that some personalities will not seek to initiate more social contact than others.  Instead, it means that the affection one party has for the other is in some way mirrored by the recipient of that affection.

Temporary circumstances (or even prolonged ones) of difficulty do not have to extinguish the affection that enables friendships to endure.  If friends are genuine in their commitment, they will persist in their bond even when one has to put in more effort than usual.  Mutuality not only forms friendships, but it sustains them during the trials both parties confront.

Some friends will naturally be or become closer than others, and those who pursue truth will, in all likelihood, naturally gravitate towards having closer relationships with similar people.  Friendship, at its best, is shared between two intellectual, spiritual, and moral equals.  In such relationships, the love of truth provides the catalyst for intimate personal bonding, with the shared love of truth allowing for the deepest of mutuality.  It is only in both intellectual and emotional intimacy that the most thorough mutuality is observed.