Friendship as Soulcraft

Nobody wants to be a type. Types stand in as substitutes for what’s there—they dull or deaden others’ perceptions of who we are. The discovery that someone transgresses type, or even plays against it—this football player does ballet!—is a delight so rare in real life as to have become commonplace in pop culture. One of my colleagues and I occasionally observe that we are “sociologically identical”: alike in age, profession, upbringing, scholarly interests, family situation, race, class, and gender. Of course, we also dress alike. But while I’m gregarious, he’s quiet; he loves tragedy, I prefer comedy; he’s imperturbable, I have a temper. The typological similarity is a false face undermined by an incommensurable interiority. We don’t want to be types because we know that every human being is more than a type.