Injury-Induced Bonding

Brother Will in Samoa for a week. An opportunity for great fun and adventure with a close friend, right? Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves... Throw a torn ankle ligament into the mix. Crutches. Now these adventurous plans don’t look so promising.

Yep, my injury meant we couldn’t cycle around the island of Savaii or explore the more remote parts of Samoa. Instead, we consigned ourselves to reading, chatting and watching sport. Not quite the holiday us active young males were expected.

This (negative?) experience brought to light a question I had been concerned about for some time:

Is the quality of my close relationships contingent upon a shared interest (in Will’s case, physical activity)?


Testing Ground
This is an aspect of relationships I’ve noticed most between males (especially involving sport), and one I have been aware of in myself. Being a sporty person, I have invested heavily in others who also enjoy sports. Of course it’s natural that I’d have this shared interest as the basis of the friendship (at least initially), which I’d see as perfectly acceptable. However, for more significant relationships, I’d expect greater depth to grow to the extent that if the shared interest were removed, there would still be closeness and mutual value from that friendship. Will’s week in Samoa proved an interesting testing ground...

Glory, Girl, Money
He arrived in Samoa at 12:30am and was on the cricket field at 2:00pm for the second annual Samoan ANZAC Day Twenty20 Cricket Match between Australians and New Zealanders in Samoa. The noticeably more serious Aussie cricketers, led by our cricket-tragic High Commissioner, were first to bat. Will was opening batsman. I was consigned to the scorers role. I watched my brother dominate proceedings to the admiration of the High Commissioner (who freely made job offers mid-pitch). 19 runs with the bat and 2 vital wickets with the ball, he was almost in line for man-of-the-match, in a fairly one-sided affair... He took the glory that could have been mine!

Fortunately enough, despite my injury, we were able to do some exploring: a couple of waterfalls, a couple of walks, the volcanic Sua Ocean Trench and one of our favourite beaches. Though for half of these adventures, I was left while Will accompanied Heather to the more inaccessible parts... He took the girl that is mine (not really, but it reads better that way)!

Heather, Will and I took the opportunity to reflect and discuss a discussion booklet produced by World Vision New Zealand on ‘Living Simply’. It raised questions about our materialistic culture and its compatibility with Christianity. Even living in Samoa, we’ve not been immune to the drug to excessively consume, upgrade and indulge. It was interesting to note that wherever ‘Consumerism’ has flourished, religion/spirituality (of all types) has been squeezed out. We’ve been prompted to reflect on how our lifestyle and spending choices have wide impacts, to ourselves and others... By introducing this discussion, he took away my right to spend my own money with impunity!

My injury took away the physical element of my relationship with Will. As a result, he got the glory and the girl. He also stripped away any sense of pride towards materialistic success. This could easily have led to conflict had our relationship been based only on shared interest. However, conflict was only evident in our discussions on the ethical dimension of military intervention.

Firm Foundation
On the contrary, this experience only served to deepen my relationship with Will... We had ample time to share the big issues of life with each other... He could spend quality time with my two special ladies in our natural habitat... And this confirmed that our relationship was built not on our shared interest in physical activity, but on a much firmer foundation. I hope all my significant relationships are built on a similarly firm foundation, sore ankle or not.