Investment or relationship?

“I made sure I invested in a few really good friends so that I would have enough support.”

“Those people are really good value.”

“These people are leaving our group? Oh well, they didn’t do anything anyway.”

If you hang around my circles you would have heard expressions like these frequently in the last couple of years.

I understand what the expressions mean, but they make me feel uncomfortable. They use the language of money, possession, acquisition and price for people and relationships.

It shows me that our culture continues to commodify people. We link value to achievement. We use friends for our own ends instead of enjoying a person for their own sake.

I scoured Proverbs recently, looking at its language of friendship. ‘Be’ a friend occurs many times. It’s the language of existence, identity and relationship.

On the other hand, the language around the concept of wealth and money brings up the ideas of deceitfulness, hoarding and never being satisfied.

I’m interested in the language of friendship you use.