I've been thinking a lot lately about friendship. The idea of it. The definition of it. What it means to me versus what it may mean to other people.
Friendship actually has many different definitions depending on who you are talking about. There are "best friends". Those people who you can call on in your hour of need and they will be there for you. The people who have your back and who will tell you the truth, whether or not you want to here it.
There are "casual friends". Maybe fellow hockey moms or soccer dads or co-workers, that sort of thing. You hang out during practice or related events, but no so much otherwise. These are people for whom you have crafted an absurdly perfect public image. You definitely would't call these people if you needed someone to bail you out of jail in the middle of the night.
Everything is just great!
Then there are "Fakebook friends". Oops, I mean Facebook friends. These are people on Facebook who you very rarely if ever see in person and never talk to on the phone. Old childhood acquaintances, people you have met once or twice. These are also people you wish to impress by posting a steady stream of updates boasting about your accomplishments and vacations and all the other cool things you are doing. These people do not qualify as actual friends. They are just a measuring stick that we hold up to our own lives to judge whether or not we meet up to everyone elses standards. It's the digital version of keeping up with the Joneses.
Maybe I'm just really old fashioned or immature. Maybe I'm a relic, a holdover to the my childhood idea of what a friend is and how friends interact, who just can't cope with how technology has redefined the nature and definition of friendship. It's weird. I feel like I'm floating in a big empty bubble that used to be full of social people doing social things, and now, I'm all alone in that bubble constantly trying to get it to bump into other bubbles for short periods of time.
I call my friends on the phone all the time. To chat. Not for anything special. Not to ask for anything or plan out anything. Just to chat. I know that during different phases of our lives it's not always easy to get together, but simple conversation with other people leads to all kinds of wonderful things. It gives you a chance to catch up on each others week, to vent about that crazy client at work or the annoying habit your family has of never replacing the toilet paper roll. You get to hear about each others families and all kinds of other mundane stuff that, when spoken out loud and shared with a friend, suddenly seems a lot more interesting and humorous. Sometimes, when you've had a shit day and you feel like your world is falling down around you and you're all alone, a simple call to a friend to cry it all out makes everything infinity clearer and better.
Seems like, nowadays we're so busy trying to convince everybody on Fakebook that our lives are just a perfect series of happy times and fun, that to admit that we are heartbroken or sad is just unthinkable. Think about it. When have you ever seen a posting on Facebook where one of your friends said, "Having a shit day. Wish I had someone to talk to"? Often the first time you hear that someone has gotten divorced is because they change their relationship status on Facebook! Just a quiet change, nothing to be concerned about. Wouldn't want to let anyone know that your life is suddenly a total shit show.
Sometimes people will post about something shitty happening in their day, but it's always veiled behind humor of some kind, or written like a news update. "Billy's been in the hospital since 1am. Oh well, I didn't need sleep anyhow!" What isn't expressed here is the terror a parent feels when their child is so sick they need to be hospitalized and no one knows why. The utter exhaustion and emotional distress that a person might be going through. This person needs a friend, and not the kind that types into the comments box, "Oh no! Hope everything is ok". They need the kind of friend who will to call and talk to them and share their concern and listen to their story and help ease the stress. They need the kind of friend who will, if possible, drive to the hospital and sit with them while they wait to hear news.
It's not just my friends that are hiding from the phone. My own family doesn't call me! 98% of the time I am the one calling my own family. If I didn't call my mother, we would never speak.
Here's what I don't get. Don't people get lonely? Don't people what to talk to other people anymore? Do they really, truly believe that scrolling through Facebook updates is "keeping in touch"? Or, are people so busy and popular that they just don't need me specifically? I'm not pouting, I'm just curious. Well, maybe I'm pouting a little bit. I just find it hard to believe that while I'm sitting reading a book in my living room in the evening, everyone else is running around whooping it up with their massive group of friends.
I'm busy. I'm very busy, but I stay in touch with my friends during the busy times. The telephone is my social life line. Taking the kids to the dentist? I call a friend while I'm waiting for them to be done. Dragging children to sports? I'm not the one playing. I've got plenty of time to catch up with a friend while I watch. One of the most frequent places I call my friends is from the car. It's hands free. I spend plenty of time driving around, why not use that time to catch up?
I have a very small core group is the people who I would call my "actual friends". I call these people frequently and have long, funny, happy, sad, supportive conversations with them. These are the people who would bail me out of jail in the middle of the night. We vent, we laugh and sometimes we even sob on each others shoulders, (figuratively speaking of course). Occasionally we make plans to go out and do something. Here's the thing though. None of these friends ever calls me. Whenever I mention this issue with to them they say that they love when I call, but that they are just "not phone people" and would never just pick up the phone and call someone themselves. What?? What happened to all those teenage girls who would never get off the phone, who spent hours every night chatting to her friends? If you love talking to people, why wouldn't you pick up the phone and call. And don't even get me started on texting. You cannot text a conversation. It's ok to text your location or the time you're going to pick some one up, or even a quick question. You cannot text an hour long conversation. That is ridiculous. I have a friend that tries to do this. Usually by the 5th text I phone her and she says, "I wondered how long it would take you". There is no way to convey emotion and humor through a text. Anyone who's thinking of emojis right now needs their ass kicked.
My husband tells me he never calls his friends either. That none of his friends call each other, they just kind of "fall into hanging out" he said. I know for a fact though that his friends do call him to hang out. He tells me he just isn't a "phone person". He had a friend who used to call him frequently, but whom he never called back. Eventually that friend stopped calling. Surprise, surprise. What is surprising, to me at least is that he doesn't seem to care. He is happy to spend every night a home with his computer and me and the kids sitting around doing nothing. Has everyone become this isolated? Are we all just sitting around at home doing nothing? Not according to Fakebook. On Fakebook everyone's having a great time.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting around doing nothing. I have many hobbies that keep me busy when I'm not pestering my friends to get together or dropping in on them unannounced. I actually enjoy my own company and my alone time. It just seems to me that life is better with friends.
Maybe I have unrealistic expectations. Maybe I just need to get more friends. Not too difficult, I am a very sociable person. Maybe I just need to chill the hell out and go with the flow. Well, the flow isn't really flowing and that's the problem. Maybe I just need to make more effort. That's easy to do too. I've been doing it for years. But after a while, when you realize you're the only one who thinks the effort is worth it, you tend to feel a little empty. We all have that little cup inside us, that we use to measure our value. When my children look at me that cup overflows. How full is that cup when you think of your friends?
Here's why keeping in touch with your friends, and actually working on your relationships is important; think about all the sad, lonely senior citizens you here about all the time. Old people and shut ins who have no one and who ultimately die sad and alone. That could be any of us in the future.
We need to make an effort to talk and get together if we want to have a future full of friends. Technology has made it so that we don't even need to know a persons phone number anymore to get in touch with them. We just send them a Facebook message. No actual human contact required! Well, I say this is bullshit. Get your friends phone numbers! Call them and talk! It's fun! It's necessary! Turn off the tv and pick up the phone!!! Because if you don't, eventually, people will stop making the effort. They will take the hint. They will leave you alone. And alone is a very sad place to be.
Peace out!
Michy
