kylec | Slow Havamal: 44

The 44th verse says that if you have a great friend and want the best of your relationship, you must speak your mind, exchange gifts, and visit.

Continuing with the theme of friendship, Havamal gives us three keys to a rich relationship: 1) to speak your mind with your friend, 2) to exchange gifts (where have we heard that before?), and 3) to visit with regularity. Since the last several verses focused on the second aspect, I’ll mostly cover the other two. The verse mentions that if you “really trust him...” This is important. We’re not talking of any casual acquaintance here. The latter two criteria can foster any degree of friendship, but the first is something we should only brave with the best of them. Maybe a friend amounts to “whoever sticks around after complete honesty.” That is, speaking your mind can ruin a good many relationships, many of which have distinct value despite being somewhat guarded.

But the way we learn to trust one another and to deepen our bond is that very act of speaking our minds. This doesn’t mean we will always agree. What it means is that we accept the genuine person in front of us—differences included—rather than demand that they play a carefully cultivated role. A friend shouldn’t ask you to be someone you’re not, and if that’s the requirement, it isn’t you who they’re friends with. It’s a simulacrum, with all the unpleasant bits removed. Any aspect of my personality will be unpleasant to someone, somewhere. The more people I try to please, the more versions of Me I have to inhabit from time to time, none of then authentic. Rather than live out my own will, I bend to the will of a false friend. Granted, I think there are times when we need to set aside our own impulses and outbursts to get along with people. But a true friend will find us amicable not in spite of our eccentricities, but because of them.

When we share our true selves, and allow the other the same courtesy, we enter into a relationship of respect and trust. We’ve made ourselves vulnerable under the hope that the other person will never use it to harm us. This mutual sharing solidifies the friendship because we both know we could hurt the other but no part of us wants to.

The part about visiting seems beyond obvious, but in practice, I often fail to keep in touch with those I care for most. Visits include things like calls, emails, and texts, but in a day when all of those easy measures are at our disposal, the face-to-face encounter holds a special weight. As I write this, gas is $6 a gallon, so you can bet I’m only going to visit a damn good friend. Finding the time is always difficult, no matter how sincere our friendship is. But if I think of the logistics as a necessary chore that I don’t dare skip, once there, the encounter unfolds with an ease and a richness that no other person can grant me.

Maybe it’s because I’m not always nice to myself, but this verse more than many lends itself to a metaphorical perspective. Are you a friend to yourself? If not, Havamal provides a winning recipe.

1) Be honest with yourself. That means no self-aggrandizing delusions, and no hateful reproofs. Talk to yourself the way you would your best friend, being patient where it’s required, and firmly honest in turn. When we speak to actual friends, we tend to soften our criticisms and pad our compliments, and at least for those who tend toward the low self-esteem side, this is the same approach we should take with ourselves. A narcissist, on the other hand, might benefit from more frequent reality checks, handed down with love behind it, rather than spite. In terms of Transactional Analysis, we should use the adult voice (the one that asks questions, reasons, and explores) rather than the parent voice (the one that criticizes based on habitual dogma).

2) A gift for the self is permission to engage in something that brings is joy. For example, I don’t always have to wait until I’m having people over to cook a nice supper. I can break out a recipe book and make myself something I get excited over on a Wednesday night. I think giving gifts to the self in America often takes on a consumerist slant, so I prefer to do something for myself rather than buy something for myself. To allow, rather than to regale.

3) To visit the self is to make time for joyful acts and solitary reflection—those gifts and honest moments already discussed. When we’re pressed, it’s usually our own time that’s cut, but it’s fine to say “no” to some obligation if we’re in need of some R&R.

In light of these criteria, how many close friends do we really have? I know I’m guilty of letting some names I would give in response slide into a place sorely lacking in all three. The good news is there’s a simple formula to restoring old relationships and building new ones. We don’t necessarily need a ton of common ground, money, or free time. All three just require a will to make it happen, and a small act of giving of the self.