186 ■ FLOW
It is not surprising that in our studies of the quality of daily
experience it has been demonstrated again and again that people report
the most positive moods overall when they are with friends. This is not
only true of teenagers: young adults also are happier with friends than
with anyone else, including their spouses. Even retirees are happier
when they are with friends than when they are with their spouses or
families.
Because a friendship usually involves common goals and common
activities, it is “naturally” enjoyable. But like any other activity, this
relationship can take a variety of forms, ranging from the destructive to
the highly complex. When a friendship is primarily a way of validating
one’s own insecure sense of self, it will give pleasure, but it will not be
enjoyable in our sense—that of fostering growth. For instance, the
institution of “drinking buddies,” so prevalent in small communities all
over the world, is a pleasant way for adult males to get together with men
they have known all their lives. In the congenial atmosphere of tavern,
pub, osteria, beer hall, tearoom, or coffee shop, they grind the day away
playing cards, darts, or checkers while arguing and teasing one another.
Meanwhile everyone feels his existence validated by the reciprocal atten
tion paid to one another’s ideas and idiosyncrasies. This type of interac
tion keeps at bay the disorganization that solitude brings to the passive
mind, but without stimulating much growth. It is rather like a collective
form of television watching, and although it is more complex in that it
requires participation, its actions and phrases tend to be rigidly scripted
and highly predictable.
Socializing of this kind mimics friendship relations, but it provides
few of the benefits of the real thing. Everyone takes pleasure in occasion
ally passing the time of day chatting, but many people become extremely
dependent on a daily “fix” of superficial contacts. This is especially true
for individuals who cannot tolerate solitude, and who have little emo
tional support at home.
Teenagers without strong family ties can become so dependent on
their peer group that they will do anything to be accepted by it. About
twenty years ago in Tucson, Arizona, the entire senior class of a large
high school knew for several months that an older dropout from the
school, who had kept up a “friendship” with the younger students, had
been killing their classmates, and burying their corpses in the desert. Yet
none of them reported the crimes to the authorities, who discovered
them by chance. The students, all nice middle-class suburban kids,
claimed that they could not divulge the murders for fear of being cut
by their friends. If those Tucson teenagers had had warm family ties, or