We are not friends. It's important that you understand this. We are not friends. I read your blog, you read mine, we look at our facebook posts, tweets, instagrams. We are not friends. I am quite distracted that we now use this word as a verb. It's not a verb. If you're having trouble believing me, please feel free to look it up. The word is a noun. It is what you may or may not be to me, or me to you. Friend denotes a place a person holds in our life. We use it as a verb, "Oh, make sure you friend me." or "Here, let me grab my phone and friend you now." When the act is accomplished, we are still not friends.
Let me digress for just a moment to help you understand. When my son was very little I faced the daunting task of trying to explain what a stranger is. 3 year olds have such a limited grasp on vocabulary, it's quite difficult. You cannot say "it's someone you don't know". To a child that means only that you don't know a person's name. Some weirdo says "Hi, I'm Jim." and the child thinks they now know this person, after all, he's Jim. I told my son a stranger was any person who had never been in our home and who's home we had never been in as well. It seemed a good way to deal with the issue and it always worked. It protected him from handymen and passing acquaintances. I'm 42 years old and have just remembered this advice.
A friend should still be such a cherished thing. None of us have as many as we like and are always surprised to find that one you thought was a friend is not. We made the word a verb and did not attach strong requirements to it, no definition. You are not my friend because you looked at my wedding pictures on facebook and read my comments stating just how happy the day made me. You still know nothing about it at all. You do not know my deep thoughts for that day, who was there, what surprised me, was I scared, am I happy now. You know really nothing. My friends came to wish us well that day. Those who could not, called to wish us well and hear all the details. They sent cards. They made dinner plans at a later date to celebrate with us. They came to our home, they invited us to theirs. They found a way to share in the moment, there or not. These are our friends.
We read so much on the anti social media pages and we mistakenly think we know these people. Seeing what you had for lunch, how many diapers your baby used today, pictures from your vacation, venomous attacks on your ex-boyfriend, these tell me very little about your heart and your hopes. This is where my friends live. In my heart and in my hopes. This is how I love them. We love our friends. We don't voyeur their lives. We participate in them. At least we should. These sites are creating an anti social mentality. We read so much, we assume we know what's happening and we don't make time to find out. We've been hoodwinked. We don't have cocktail parties, dinner parties. We don't go out for a night with friends, see a play, go to a gallery, watch the game. We don't pick up the phone for a good long catch up. All that time we spend scrolling through the anti social media pages and we could have made a phone call and a real connection. Connections, there are so few of them in our lives anymore. We've all seen those pictures floating on the net with a group of people all out to eat and each one is scrolling an anti social media page or texting someone who is not at the table. We all laugh, we all say how terrible it is, but we do it too.
So, Anti Social Media. That's what it is. All those outlets of information only trick us into thinking we have a social life will all those strangers, but that's what so many of them are for us, strangers. All we are really doing is sharing information and very little of it at that. Just the facts ma'am, not the feelings or emotions or the privacy. Do not let it trick you. These are not your friends either. These are people with whom we only share the least important parts of our lives. If you want to test my theory, that we are moving to a world of anti social behavior, try this trick. Type the word "facebook" then type the word "friend", see which one your autocorrect capitalizes. Then decide which one is capital F for you.
We are not friends. I'd like us to be, my door is always open. Give me a call, invite me out, invite yourself over, have a cocktail party! Go forth in the world and be social. Go forth in the world and make Friends.
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