Before leaving this era of early adulthood friendships to be found at work, in life style enclaves and in the midst of joint projects, we should at least acknowledge that there are “faux” friendships that hop on the back of the strong career ambitious that are often found to prevail in our early (and middle adulthood. We create opportunistic friendships. Friends” are formed so that we might do some social status climbing. I am reminded of a scene in Frank Loesser’s How to succeed in Business Without Trying. An ambitious young man (J. Pierrepont Finch) finds that the aging head of his company attended the same college (“Old Ivy”) as he did. He makes full use of this shared affiliation (a version of life style enclave) to endear himself to this leader. Together with others in his company, J. Pierrepont also sings a song that suggests there is no such thing as social status ( “Brotherhood of Man”)—though he is fully engaged in climbing up the ladder of social status and ensuring that he will be successful in business without really trying.
I find this type of faux friendship swirling around my own life and work. I witnessed this kind of friendship during the many years when I was conducting workshops or delivering keynote speeches at some conference. I often found that a new “dear” friend was hanging around me and always sitting with me at lunch or dinner. They would praise my work and ask me to join them in conducting some project. A “true” friend of mine suggested that these “new friends” were hanging on ropes strung around my neck. There I was, traveling through my own career with the burden of “hanging with friends.” I gained little from these faux friendships—other than perhaps the ego-gratification that comes with being “admired.” I often challenge myself not only about what I have gained from these false friendships, but also about the extent to which I forged faux friendships in my own early career with those who had already “made it” and were of higher social status in the academic and professional service world in which I dwelled.
Mid-life Crisis
Considerable attention was drawn during the last three decades of the 20th Century to the matter of challenges confronted during the middle decades of our life (Gould, 1979; Levinson and Associates, 1978; Sheehy, 1996; Levinson,1997). It is during our late 40s and early 50s that we confront what Eliott Jaques (1965) coined “the mid-life crisis.” Issues that were set on hold during our 30s and early 40s no longer can be avoided. Voices from other rooms in our psyche (Capote, 1994: Yong, Warrier and Bergquist, 2021) are now louder and demanding of corrective action. We find that dreams dismissed during our 20s are coming to the fore again and wish to be honored (Bergquist, 2012). I often use the metaphor of a psychological rubber band that is being stretched out further and further in our late 40s until it snaps—as which time we become depressed, increase use of alcohol or mind-altering drugs, get a divorce, change jobs, or simply do more daydreaming.
There is also the deep existential matter of now viewing life from today until our death, rather than from birth to today. Our aches and pains remind us that we are mortal, as does the decline and even death of our parents. This lingering sense of limitations in life often leaves us with grief associated with not only the failure to achieve our once-hoped-for goals but also the failure to be the loving spouse and devoted parent that we had once thought we could be. This is a time when we question our values, actions we have taken (or not taken) and important relationships that have been squandered.
