A Friend or Four Hundred

Those of you who have stuck by me and continue to read my itinerant bloggings in this space will remember that recently, I pondered the Brave New World of virtual friendships. 

This topic has stuck heavily on my mind and has moved me to contemplate the nature of modern friendships.  Has the immediacy, flexibility and accessibility of technology-based communication corrupted our understanding of that most noble of relationships, "the true friend"?

The word "friend" it seems has been commandeered by sites like Facebook and MSN, to such an extent that many people seem to have forgotten the true meaning of the word.

First up let me make if plain that I am probably a little unusual in that I place a greater than usual emphasis on the word.  Having been brought up in a boarding school environment, my earlier years were shaped to a major degree by people outside my immediate family.  These variously included a nun with a gold tooth, school mates, teachers and if you count it, one crippled dog called 'Bingo'. 

Later, when my family moved to Australia, the absence of immediate relatives meant our home was always full of "other people" - my very sociable parents vast collection of neighbours, work mates, fellow Sri Lankans and the occasional international visitor.

These were the people I relied on for my sense of connection to the rest of humanity and so, as a result, the notion of a "friend" was almost narcotic.  They were people, in short, who mattered deeply to us.

I have therefore evolved into the kind of human being who places great store on those gestures that reflect genuine caring for another:  remembering a birthday; offers of help in times of personal crisis; time spent (often endless time) offering advice, however flawed, to problems that sometimes seem insurmountable.  I'm a frequent entertainer and, over the years, have held countless dinner parties and parties, many of them the sole highlight in the social calendars of various individuals.  I place a huge emphasis on gifts and will take a great deal of time thinking about each person's likes and dislikes and hunting often for weeks for the "right" present.

But these gestures often surprise my many Australian-born friends.   One even suggested, albeit obliquely that I am "over the top." 

I would disagree.  I would say that I am not "over the top" but that I do not take the concept of 'friendship' for granted.  I view it as a flower that must be tendered lest it wither and die.

I argue that "friendship" is the foundation of every single relationship, whether with lover, sister or friend, with mother or child, with teacher, or mentor or any human being with who you interact in any meaningful way.

And friendship requires work and commitment.

Friendship should be a dialogue, not a soliloquy.  It should be about presence not absence.  It should be about remembering, not forgetting.   It should be about the things that bring us together, not keep us apart.  It should be about doing a little more - being 'over the top' - than doing a little less.

In my next blog, I will discuss how this notion of friendship should be applied to the online world.  In the meantime, I ask you to think a little about what being a "friend" means to you.

And when you next "accept" a friend invitation on Facebook, perhaps pause a little and remind yourself of what this relationship should mean to you.

Who wants to know?

Proclamations of love.  Daily intimacies. Daily diaries overflowing with mundanities.  Often hastily scribed, sometimes bubbling with excitement, and perhaps an overuse of punctuation.

Don't you love social networking sites?  All of a sudden, once-lonely Leona has a million 'friends' or 'followers' and boy, is she embracing the share-fest.

The voyeur in me loves it - and sure, it's heartening to know that I am not alone in my imperfect, angst-ridden life.

But the communicator in me can't help but cringe.

The fact is that all communication should be about 'targeting' or niching messages specific to an audience, something that is lost to the average Facebook user.  Not every message is interesting, relevant or suitable for every person and is dependent on a range of demographics - age, education, culture and so on.

Despite privacy options that enable us to distill our friends into lists, unfortunately most people don't realise that the more "friends" you accumulate, the more care needs to be taken in exactly what is said or shared.

Okay, I know it takes the fun out of it.  It's the spontaneous, visceral 'posts' I enjoy - the friend in the thrall of jubilation, the one needing advice and counsel, the one having a bad day, the one (usually me) not afraid to post a heartfelt expletive.

But the cruel reality is that the more obscure the degrees of connection to your world of Facebook friends, the more caution we all need to take in who, what, where and when we choose to post our feeling, thought or insight of the moment.

Spontaneous communications are wonderful between intimate friends, but as the degrees of separation get into their double digits, it is wisest to practice some self-censorship.

Start with your motivations.

Remember that your commentary on sites like Facebook and Twitter are a window to your world.  Do you want to impress, inspire, titillate, shock, amuse, inform, entertain, excite?

From the great 'why', the 'what' will follow and please, don't forget the most important consideration in my view, 'who'.  Who wants to know?