Head of School’s Notebook: Friends

March 30, 2022

I attended a memorial service this past weekend for Tom Jones, the parent of two Cate students, one a member of the Class of ’13 and the other a current sophomore. Tom and I shared a college, but that wasn’t the reason he became my friend. It was Tom’s captivating, adventurous, unflappable, occasionally irreverent and ever inquisitive nature that did that.

Tom and his wife Li Ping were behind the first Cate admissions reception in Beijing. We were late for it, as it turned out, because Tom and Li Ping were so eager to show us their city. But it didn’t seem to bother Tom at all that he would be the last to arrive at the event he was hosting.  Besides, with Li Ping at the wheel, given her affection for velocity, it was better just to hold on tight and trust no one could get us there sooner.

We all meet remarkable people in our lives; people who seem to find in their experience a special joy or understanding. That was Tom. He loved things; people; experiences; avocations; ideas; cultures; you name it. His memorial service was attended by friends from all over the world, for the gravity in Tom’s orbit was strong. He was a man you wanted to spend time with because you sensed always his appreciation for and interest in you. Such magnanimity is rare indeed.

Most scholarship that I read these days suggest that the kind of fascination Tom demonstrated towards his fellow travelers is getting rarer. The pandemic certainly hasn’t helped. Absence can make the heart grow fonder but it can also lead to inordinate attention to our own feelings and needs. It is easy to become trapped in our own suffering.

Tom would have known that better than most. But he never quit on the fight, especially the fight to spend all the time he could with his family or to see the places in the world he could, to meet old friends or even make new ones.

It is a quality of relating that Robin Dunbar in her recently published Friends says is instrumental for a happy and connected life. According to Dunbar, human beings are capable of maintaining approximately 150 relationships. Our friendships come in a series of concentric circles, the closest, those we know the best and see most regularly, numbering around five.

The forces that cause us to gravitate to each other and form these friendships are generally unsurprising. Usually it’s things we have in common, although I’m not sure that holds in Tom’s case. He seemed to revel in an eclectic mix of friends. But he was also eclectic in his own interests, so perhaps it makes sense.

But the most critical issue when it comes to relationship building is, of course, time. How much time are we willing to give to a friendship? The closest ones – the friendships that constitute our respective inner circles of five or so – those are the ones we invest the most time in.

That’s what Tom did with me. He spent time, showed me his city, his house, introduced me to the culture of a country he came to love, its art and furniture. It is the very thing that happens at Cate, too, that volume of time together that builds unprecedented and everlasting friendships.  And it is something we must be mindful of as we attempt to shake off the pandemic fog and invigorate our communities.

David Brooks noted in an editorial recently on a similar topic, “ As we gradually slog back to normal life, this might be the moment to take a friendship inventory, and to be aggressively friendly.”

That would make us all like Tom Jones, which may well be just what the world needs.