Well before I had kids, I made peace with the fact that I didn't need anymore friends. Now before my friends start blowing up my inbox and hating on me, let me clarify. All throughout my adolescence, I struggled with serious insecurities. Every day of my life, I was reminded of how I different I was. I was not white in a school full of affluent white kids. I was too smart to be a badass and too stupid to be a nerd. I had no athletic abilities and I was too short and fat to be considered attractive to any of the girls I was attracted to. To my parents, I didn't garner enough high marks, awards or honors that their friends' kids. To my dad, I wasn't man enough - too soft spoken, too cowardly. I did drama for Christ's sake. Given all this, having friends meant the world to me. It provided me with a sense of worth and validation that I wasn't getting from life. In high school, I found theatre which not only championed my talent and potential but gave me a bevy of friends. But then life happens. You make that long, arduous transition from an invulnerable 18 year old to a real grown up with responsibilities and consequences. Friendships have come and gone and they're no longer the center of your world the way they once were. Your spouse and kids take that place and the gravity of being responsible to and for them is now your mission and calling. And where you once lamented this fact, you now accept it (if you even acknowledge it at all).
My wife used to say to me, "I wish you had some guy friends." That hole that I once filled with friends - that aching sense of loneliness and desire for acceptance was now satisfied by the immense responsibility to my family. And oddly enough I'm incredibly content with that. Their love is more than enough and I am often surprised how much they love me.
Don't get me wrong. I still keep in touch with some old friends from high school and college. But they're not the same friendships we once enjoyed. None of them are knocking on my window at night to sneak in a case of beer anymore. And I have some great friends I've made through work. But they're also not the same as friends whom you trust with secrets, fears and dreams. Doing so makes for very awkward balancing acts of work/life. Not everyone is mature enough to navigate it. And inevitably, when one of your friends leaves your place of work, that friendship will change drastically, if not disappearing altogether.
So this is where I find myself when I got involved with jiu jitsu. You read any blog about the benefits of jiu jitsu and amongst the health and fitness points, you'll always see mention of the newfound community of lifelong friends. Let me tell you something - that almost unsold me on the sport. I didn't want any part of it. I have come to value and protect the privacy I have for me and my family and the idea that I would be paying for martial arts lessons with a special add-on benefit of friends that I'd be obliged to care about seemed disingenuous and annoying. But seeing as I was an adult, I decided that you don't have to make friends if you didn't want to. No-brainer, right?
There's that saying amongst BJJ practitioners that if you don't roll, you don't know. Something about the journey connects everyone in a way that other arts don't. In my line of work, and I assume in many lines of work, there's a tendency to wave your achievements like a flag and remind newcomers of how much you know and how much you've done in your life. Pick up any program from a community theatre and read the actor bios. You would think that community theatres secretly host the world's most revered thespians. Jiu jitsu works differently. Because everyone has started from zero and remembers how steep that climb is in that first year of training, higher ranks have a tendency to reach out to newbies. There's a sense of recognition - a "been there and you can do this" type of connection. It doesn't always manifest itself as friendliness, though. It can be somewhat standoff-ish. Not because they think they're better than you (because they don't think that, they KNOW that). It's because they know that out of the few that start the journey, few have the stamina to continue it past blue belt. Some won't make it past a month. Why? Cause you suck. We all do. Like infants learning to crawl and then eventually walk. We all start from zero. And for some, that's just too frustrating a defeat to swallow. They've done their schooling and earned good grades and bought that car, that home, nailed that post or whatever. Why the hell should I subject myself to this and start from the bottom? And that's just it - those that drink the Kool-Aid, those that undergo the journey, they tear their ego down to the ground. When we hit the mats and put on the gi, you are not putting on a costume. You are actually taking it off. In a gi, you have stripped away all of the title, pretense and decoration that you don to make it outside in society. On the mats, however, none of that helps you. You cannot fake it. You cannot bullshit your skill level, your technique, your ability. And when you roll with the same group of people over the course of a month, a year, you know them in a way that is unlike other friendships you've had. If you asked me two years ago if I'd ever be friends with a Republican, a pro-gun, cop or a soldier, I'd laugh at you. But here I am. I have a Coach that gives so much of himself to his students, imparting knowledge and guidance that is transferable outside of jiu jitsu. His generosity of spirit and belief in his students' potential is inspiring. And my teammates - they take and dispense support and feedback without guile or judgement, without ambition or motive. It's like we are all scaling a wall that we'd never thought we could get over before - but because Coach told us we could and because everyone else will help us get there, we are doing it and with gusto.
No one joins jiu jitsu for the friends, but on any given night, once I get my daughter to bed and know that I've done my duty as a husband and dad, there's no other group of people I want to hang with than the crew I roll with.
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