Friendships North and South

I spoke to a friend in Portland, Oregon last night who had moved down to the States from Canada about 15 years ago. Both she and her husband have become U.S. citizens. At the end of the phone call she said, "Great to talk to you. I so value our Canadian friends, they're different than our American friends." Naturally that caught my attention, a chance to pursue someone else's cross-cultural musings. "What do you mean?" I asked, wishing I had a digital recorder in easy reach.

"Well," she went on, "Canadians ARE different. They have more heart. Here it's harder to be vulnerable. Now don't get me wrong, I love our American friends, they're dears, but it's harder to go deep in those friendships. There seems to be more compassion in our Canadian friends, maybe because of the social safety net. Here, if you're needy, it's all about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps where Canadians have more of a belief in 'I am my brother's keeper.'

My friend's remarks brought me back to a conversation several years ago with a successful cousin of mine, an entrepreneurial doctor, about how I liked Canada. At the end of my response, he looked at me and said, "you know, the U.S. is the greatest place to be in the world if you have money and your health, and it's been great for me, but I know if you don't have those, it can be a real hell."

My friend's husband, also a Canadian, had recently lost his executive job as a result of the stuggling economy. I wonder if the greatest place in the world is about to morph into something else for him. And who knew, in the furnace of getting ahead in America, that one may have friendships not quite equal to the task of being your brother’s keeper.