As someone who rarely uses Facebook, I am always surprised to log in and see how much private information people share on such sites. My profile was creating during my university days because of repeated email invites from friends. I eventually joined, but never had much interest in the site. My last post is from 2014 on there and I don’t even have my picture on there.
A few days ago I noticed a post from an old childhood friend whom I rarely have contact with anymore. It got me thinking about society and some recent conversations I have had with current friends in regards to the subject of friendship, so I thought this would be a eat example to lead-in and get some writing done.
My Old Friend
We met while riding the bus home from school one day. Upon discovering a mutual interest in gratuitously-violent video games and general mischief, we were an instant hit!
From that day on, he was added to my roster of friends much like a party member would be added to an adventuring party in an RPG. We often hung out together or in groups of six or more, often bringing along our respective groups of friends to binge-play Starcraft, basketball, or make prank calls from the local mall’s payphones.
We continued to hang out until the end of high school and even stayed in touch while we were away at our universities. Eventually we both graduated university and the scary reality of job-hunting in the real world hit us hard. We both managed to gain some form of meager employment, and we often called to share our war stories throughout the week.
As time went on he informed me he had met someone whom he was deeply in love with. They had hit it off and were inseparable as many new young couples are. After a year or so had passed, he informed me they were getting married. I congratulated him and was quite happy for him.
After they got married, we stayed in-touch and contacted each other on a weekly basis. Eventually, it dwindled down to a monthly basis for a time before stopping completely at one point. Now that it has been around seven years since that happened, we have been in contact only four or five times since then.
Friendships & Likes
This is a pretty common story among friendships in the US. It is difficult to maintain friendships there. I find that friendships in the US are often maintained with an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude. Sure, a friend may like your Facebook post or tell you they miss you once in awhile, but such actions require very little effort at all and are most-often insincere in our society.
In contrast, the first time a foreign friend contacted me years after we met, I was a bit surprised. But this is more normal in other parts of the world. I was speaking with a person from another country awhile ago about this topic, as we were discussing our childhoods, in Spanish, of course.
He mentioned to me how difficult he found friendships with Americans were and he asked me why this was. I thought about his question a bit, and then I contemplated the common description from foreigners about us. “We are a cold bunch”, I replied. He laughed and agreed, and we carried on with our conversation as we drove to our destination.
Conclusion
Friendships are not easy to maintain. I believe that most people in general, really only have 3-10 true friends. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and others have given many of us an unrealistic view or expectation when it comes to friendships. If you have a few close friends whom call you weekly or at least have an interest in knowing about your life, that’s pretty good. If you don’t, stop reading this post, get off your ass, and meet some people for crying out loud!
