Friends in the Laravel community

Mixed emotions about this one, obviously.

Laravel has been a big part of my life for what I would consider to be my whole career. I was working in tech before Laravel, but it was in a kind of quiet obscurity, characterised by an unwillingness to share anything about what I was making with the world.

It just so happens the first things I started sharing were in Laravel, and since then I have shared a lot in the Laravel community. I was, at one time, setting myself up to be type-cast as a Laravel folk. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. Loads of people make a good living as Laravel folks. I like these people. They build the community up. Arguably Laravel’s best feature.

When I saw Greg’s tweet about “friends you didn’t know you had”, I physically reacted. I think it’s a wonderful sentiment, and there are a couple people in Laravel that I do consider to be friends; but not because they’re specifically in Laravel. Laravel us a shared interest, not the reason they are my friends.

I have escaped from a cult, and “friends you didn’t know you had” is a cult mentality.

Some people say Jesus’ biggest miracle was that, as an adult, he had 12 friends. It’s not easy, as an adult, to gain and cultivate relationships to the point where I would consider those relationships friendships. When you think about a good friend (if you are privileged enough to have one of those), what do you think about? Here are some things I think define friendship:

• You know each other. Not the superficial stuff or the sound bites you are comfortable to give on camera, quirky and interesting. Your friend has seen the mould on the side of your fridge. They know some embarrassing stuff about you. Not terrible stuff they are helping you keep secret (that makes them enablers or accomplices), but stuff that you don’t want a wide audience knowing. You’ve told them these things or they have lived through experiences with you that mean they have some deep insight into your life.
• You would help them move furniture in the rain. They don’t have to ask twice. You have no desire to evade the question. Your first thought isn’t about how to get out of the situation. They are open to asking and you immediately find a way to make it happen.
• You miss them. Some times you don’t get to see them for longer-than-usual periods of time and that sucks. You think about them (assuming stuff like ADHD doesn’t prevent this) or remember them when you see or think about something shared. This makes you want to be with them.

To me, the line between a friend and someone close to me is a blurry one. I’m not about to tell some of my friends I love them, but when you take a deep look at the things I am willing to do and the feelings I have and the ways in which these things interact and play out…it’s close.

Maybe I’m an outlier in this. I have many acquaintances. Many people I enjoy the company of and who enjoy mine. Many people I’d happily share a meal and a good story with. They’re not my friends. I don’t phileo them.

The casual observer would notice some of how I speak relates to beliefs I hold. I’m not expecting you (or even my friends) to share those beliefs. I just find some of the language helpful to explain how I feel.

So, anyway. The cult. They like to use this kind of imagery (where everyone is the friend you didn’t know you had) in lockstep with vivid scriptural language about how intimate a true friend is; because it reinforces the illusion that you should not speak out about or resist bad behaviour from cult members. Particularly leadership.

“I’m your friend and a friend wouldn’t hurt you, would they?”

“We need to take care of our friends by keeping our business to ourselves. The world outside aren’t our friends and therefore cannot accurately assess what’s right in this situation.”

These aren’t ideas in a vacuum either. The cult was a bible-based one, and if there’s anything the world does know about bible-based abusers; it’s that they know how to take bible passages out of context. In this case, the cult folk love passages like:

“If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world?”

This thought I’m sharing with you isn’t specifically about beliefs, so I don’t want to spend any time telling you what I really think this passage is about; except to say that cult folk use it to mean people inside the cult should keep their mouth shut and listen to cult leadership.

What does this have to do with friends in the Laravel community?

Matt is my friend. We haven’t spent a lot of time together over the years, but I identify with him and miss him and wish I could hang out with him. Sam is my friend. We often talk about cool tech things and he has helped me financially and emotionally in recent years. I would help Sam move furniture in a blizzard. Frank is a friend. I know where I stand with him and I was overjoyed when he became a father.

By contrast…

Taylor is an acquaintance, who I would help in a heartbeat. I am fond of him, and he is kind and generous. Taylor doesn’t really know me. We’ve spoken and I don’t doubt his goodwill or intention. I just don’t think he has time to be my friend.

Marcel is brilliant in ways not many other people are. Like me, he enjoys dissecting problems nobody knows they have. Unlike me, he is also good at turning those solutions into viable products that actually help loads of people. He’s also fun to talk to. I don’t think he feels like I am a friend, because we don’t spend all that much time talking about things outside of the weird problem spaces we’ve both dug into. I’m just not that interesting to him.

Aaron is an acquaintance. I wish he were a friend, because he would be the best kind of friend. Someone unshakable nice and upbuilding. Someone with a clear desire for the best in people and in himself.

I wish I had more friends in the Laravel community than I do. I suspect even some folks I think are my friends are just my misperception of how things really are; and that maybe some folks feel an equally one-sided feeling about me.

Please reach out to me if this is the case. I could use more friends.

I don’t think anyone who doesn’t feel like my friend is out to get me. The truth is they probably just don’t have bandwidth to notice I’m there. That’s nobody’s fault.

The Laravel community is amazing. It’s part of what makes my life good. I get to work with the ecosystem every day. Even my side projects are Laravel projects, because it’s just so easy to feel welcome. Generous and welcoming people aren’t automatically friends, though. And, thinking they are or being told they are can be unhelpful at best and unhealthy at worst.

Friends owe you something, just like you owe them something. Taylor and Marcel and Aaron owe me nothing. I can’t make demands of their time or attention. I am glad they share it with the world, but it would be foolish of me to demand it. They are not my friends, yet.

I cannot expect them to be there for me when I need it. I shouldn’t hold out for this because it will poison me when it doesn’t happen. I probably can’t even expect it of Matt, Sam or Frank; to be perfectly honest.

I can count, on one hand, the people I can expect those things from. Maybe I need a word that is more than friend; but in the meantime friend is what I have to define these close relationships; and I did not automatically get new friends when I started using Laravel.