Social Skills – See People for Who They Really Are
Is Love Blind?
If we want healthy relationships, we need to practice specific social skills from friendship building. The old saying, “Love is blind” comes from literature. Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare both used the phrase for satire and comedy. But our culture embraced it as a truism meaning that love overlooks the details of personality, especially the faults. What a great example of how clueless our culture can be about relationships.
In fact, one of the greatest benefits of Christian friendship is that it opens the mind to intimacy. When we love someone, we desire to know that person, even when knowledge of their not-so-good traits come with that intimacy.
Yet, it’s true that we are much more willing to “overlook” the faults of our friends and loved ones. But that’s not because love is blind. In fact, that’s because love sees more clearly. If we look at someone without love, we see only the outside. There is no intimacy – no “in” sight. But when we look at someone we love, with whom we share intimacy, we see the goodness and the beauty in that person that other people may not be aware of. Developing this insight is one of the most important social skills we can learn if we want to build true intimacy.
God Looks at the Heart – and We Should Too
For example, I was friends with a man named Dave (eternal rest grant unto him, oh Lord . . .). He was in his 60’s. He hung around the coffee shop. When I first met him, I saw him as a bit of a listless drifter. He was introduced into my circle of friends by a mutual friend, but he was shy. He would often stare off into space. Our mutual friend would usually buy his coffee for him. He seemed to me to be a dull, passionless mooch.
But the more I got to know him, the more I grew to love and respect him. Dave had had a hard life. Yet, he was still open to making new friends. He was shy toward people he didn’t know. But once he warmed up to our group, he laughed, shared in our inside jokes, and contributed meaningfully to our discussion. He revealed himself to be a man of great patience and loyalty to his friends. The fact that he couldn’t afford to buy a mocha every time we got together didn’t keep him from coming. And other people bought him coffee because they wanted him to come! It got to the point that I looked forward to seeing him at the coffee shop when I met my friends there. I even started paying for his coffee. Unfortunately, Dave died under mysterious circumstances, alone in a hotel room. He didn’t deserve to die alone. I pray for him regularly and I hope to see him again in Heaven.
What I would have missed out on if I hadn’t gotten to know him! From the outside, Dave didn’t seem worth knowing. From the inside, his weaknesses of character were overshadowed by his virtue.
My friendship with Dave reveals an important benefit of Christian friendship. Christian friendship brings enlightenment. First, it brings the enlightenment of intimacy – truly coming to know another person. But it also brings the enlightenment of life lessons. My friendship with David taught me to seek out the treasure that is often buried deep inside people we may be tempted to ignore at first. That’s a lesson I could only have learned – and continue to learn – by opening myself up to friendship.
Nurturing Social Skills: Insight – Intimacy
True intimacy means knowing others for who they really are.
This is what Jesus calls us to when He commands us to love our neighbor. You remember the story of the Good Samaritan, right? Jesus’ message in that parable was that every human being God brings into our lives is our neighbor. We are called to love everyone. But as my story about Dave illustrates, that’s not always easy. Fortunately for us, the love of friendship is nurtured by skills that we can learn – and learning those skills opens us to the grace of Charity that in turn empowers us to love even more completely. That’s called cooperating with grace. God’s part is to enliven your soul with His love. Our part is to make the choice to love others – and part of making that choice is to develop our social skills and to grow in friendship.