Previously, I praised two students for their willingness to let their relationships be. Those two are aberrations among a contrary, subconscious practice in which others engage. Big picture, campus ministry here focuses on relationships. Primarily the relationships between members of the faithful and our Lord. Secondarily, it carries into relationships among the faithful. 

Relationships among young adults here do require attention. They are unhealthier than you or I know. However, many here treat friendship like an exact science. How many texts must I send you per day to be your friend? How many times must I see you? I do not ask these questions, but others do. Applying material criteria to an immaterial concept leads members of the community to miss the invisible, necessary components of their relationships when those relationships lack visible trappings to which they may cling. Put another way, they focus on material ornamentation over immaterial substance. I hope that I would have the courage to die for another person, but my willingness to die for that person does not mean that the two of us must get along. The misunderstanding seems to arise from the presupposition that a person must like someone to love them—and that liking someone must manifest in a particular, visible way. I like plenty of the people here; I do not like others. I want them all to go to Heaven regardless, and I am willing to do what I can to help them get there. You would think that would be enough. You would be wrong.

Outside of my will for their ultimate good, my experience informs how my relationships with others unfold. If everyone is my best friend, then no one is. However, it is easy for me to not grasp at relationships now because I have the ones that I want. I know where and to whom I belong. Here, people in the Catholic community attempt to exact a sense of belonging from others without considering compatibility. In its absence, many of their relationships lack depth. Depth is replaced by surface-level pleasantries and—a word that I have come to abhor—affirmations. Accordingly, the dynamic often resembles a game of “house,” wherein participants suspend their true feelings to play a part: the purpose of which is to protect the feelings of others who play the same game. In so doing, the invisible, sacrificial components of relationships fall by the wayside in favor of overt demonstrations of affection. For example, these thoughts that I have just described do not net well on the scale of feelings because warm’n’fuzzies are not their desired effect.

I promise that the point here is not to complain that people are bothering me with their friendship. Rather, it is to draw attention to an oversight that stifles the personal and spiritual development of young adults. Friendship involves support, but it also involves correction. It is easy to give and receive support, but it takes trust to give and receive correction. Trust contradicts the measurable approach to friendship because it requires surrender of control. Trust cannot take effect when it competes with a naked desire to belong. Consequently, half-friendships abound under the guise that they are complete. Half-friendships do worse than lack trust; they encourage it to atrophy while their partakers escalate an arms race to show each other how much they care.