Real Friends..... and dropping off the radar.
Lately I've been pondering how friendships evolve, change, flourish and flitter away...especially with my new addiction to facebook. All of a sudden there are a ton of people from high school wanting to add me to their friends or get back in touch with me. Now, I'm all about rekindling or getting to know people. But I just don't have time or space in my heart / life to just have a person on my friends just because I met them once. Seriously some of these people I can't even figure out who they are / were. Some it's like "yeah, I recognize you...but I don't know your name and I don't think we even talked...ever."
Likewise, there are some friends that have dropped off the radar. I guess I'm relearning a lesson here: people drop off, drop out and that's okay. Ironically these people tend to be people that are geographically close at the time of drop off. The "drop off" of one such friend was especially hard to accept - since her and I had been best friends in college, one of those people you think is going to be a forever-friend.
Then there are the people you thought were friends, but really weren't. I don't have many of those on my list but am in disbelief sometimes of one person's "friend". This "friend" (A) was so into this person (B)....so much so A wanted to move across the country for to be closer (and live with) B. A wanted to have children with B and even had names picked out. A and B did business together and years later A still owes B nearly $10,000! Since then A's dropped off. It's like A has decided that not paying their debt will be their revenge. Revenge for what? Revenge for not getting their way...you see B wasn't quite as into A as A was into B. B now has children with someone else and his happily married and not to A.
So what truly constitutes a friendship? What's the difference between a friend and acquaintance? Why do people feel the need to make an acquaintance into more than just that when they don't have the will or time to do so? Has MySpace & Facebook made perfectly normal adults revert back to the popularity contests of adolescents?
Likewise, there are some friends that have dropped off the radar. I guess I'm relearning a lesson here: people drop off, drop out and that's okay. Ironically these people tend to be people that are geographically close at the time of drop off. The "drop off" of one such friend was especially hard to accept - since her and I had been best friends in college, one of those people you think is going to be a forever-friend.
Then there are the people you thought were friends, but really weren't. I don't have many of those on my list but am in disbelief sometimes of one person's "friend". This "friend" (A) was so into this person (B)....so much so A wanted to move across the country for to be closer (and live with) B. A wanted to have children with B and even had names picked out. A and B did business together and years later A still owes B nearly $10,000! Since then A's dropped off. It's like A has decided that not paying their debt will be their revenge. Revenge for what? Revenge for not getting their way...you see B wasn't quite as into A as A was into B. B now has children with someone else and his happily married and not to A.
So what truly constitutes a friendship? What's the difference between a friend and acquaintance? Why do people feel the need to make an acquaintance into more than just that when they don't have the will or time to do so? Has MySpace & Facebook made perfectly normal adults revert back to the popularity contests of adolescents?