3 posts tagged “friendship”

Setting: a conference call between SF, LA and France

Players: me (VP), Paul and Patrick (marcom directors)

Context: We were talking about the budget for the upcoming year. I asked them both to prepare two drafts, one based on the same amount of spending as the current year, and one that included an increase to cover recommended new programs and promotions.

Paul: "Ideally we should add at least another couple of million to advertising worldwide..."

Me: "If I had a million dollars..."

Paul: "I'd buy you a green dress."

Me: "But not a real green dress, that's cruel."

Patrick: ?

And that's how Paul and I knew we would be friends forever.

I met a friend of mine in the airport a couple of months back. I know, this happens to all of you, small world, san jose airport, yada yada yada.

But it almost never happens to me. And when it does it's because someone else has recognized me. In my world, the airport is nothing but a blur of lights, buzzing sounds and shiny faces. I am mission-oriented about air travel and my goal is to not miss my plane. Once, when I was visiting my grandparents in Alabama, I literally hugged them too long and they closed the airplane door on me. I had to knock on the outside of the plane for them to let me in. They did (this was a long time ago).

I stress about things like this.

What were we talking about? Oh yes, my friend Deb. In fact she is a long-lost friend from a company I worked for 20 years ago (damn, I'm old). The greatest person. Warm. Genuine. Smart as a whip. She makes me feel all happy when I talk to her. Some people just have that quality of warmth. When you're with them you just want to be with them longer. That's Deb.

So I'm literally barrelling down the corridor to my gate when I hear my name. My whole name is required to get my attention, Karen is simply too common for me to pay attention. But I hear my whole name and I look around. I don't see anyone. And then this woman I don't know is coming over to me to hug me. I squint. My sense of context returns and I recognize the long-lost-and-much-liked person in front of me.

We talk for about 20 minutes as her plane boards. We talk about our mutual friends and how we would love to get them together again. We gossip about the jerk we both dislike who left our really great friend for yet another younger woman (he's done this twice already). Too soon, it's last call and time for her to go. I hand her one of my cards and blurt out "send me your e-mail so I can find you again." She promises she will. And then nothing.

Nothing!

And so officially she is lost to me again. This makes me sad.

It also makes me think. How can we have such a warm rapport in the airport - and every other time we meet - and then lose touch so completely? We like each other but we just can't seem to keep it together long enough. Not even email. Years go by without a word. And yet we continue to stumble into each other and it makes me feel like we are supposed to stay friends.

I blame her, of course. She has my contact info and I have nothing. The burden of responsibility is on her. However, I think we all know that if I had the card and she didn't we might still be in this same boat. I've done it to others.

Why? I have no idea. I see you. I love you. I want to get together. Let's have lunch. Dinner. A girls' trip to the spa. And then I can't. My life happens. The world happens. Lost momentum fizzles out and we stop trying.

Which is the lamest thing I ever heard. I have these 10 minutes right now that I'm using to knock out this Vox post. Aren't these 10 minutes better spent to find and connect to the (no offense) real people in my life? Yes, of course, you're real too, but you understand what I mean, don't you? It's a pitiful explanation for lost friends.

What's a girl to do?

Forgive, that's what.

I forgive her for not being able to keep up her end of the bargain. And I forgive myself for being so lame. She, like all of us, is hugely busy. A working mother of two, with all that entails. Owns her own business (she's such a smartie pants).  And I know the next time we see each other it will be just like old times and I will not dwell on the missing time.

Just like my friends have, still do, and will continue to, forgive me.

I have been thinking a lot about friendship within Vox. Since I am new to social networking, the idea of making friends online with people I have never met is forcing me to evaluate the very idea of what makes someone my friend.

In real life I am not a person with a thousand friends. I have a small number of very dear friends. The kind of friends who would bail be out of a Mexican prison (although this has not been tested), let me sob on their shoulders (yes, I'm sure about this one) and who often care about me more than I care about myself. Some of my friends are just like me, with small circles of close friends, and some of my friends are social butterflies that belong to giant circles.

I like thinking about these groups of friends as circles, although it's not very original, in part because I like the visual idea of circles that link up to make chains of interconnected people. My little Vox community is part of that chain, and it overlaps and intersects with others. (This is the part where everyone should start singing "I'd like to buy the world a coke.") And when I am forming links with new people, I usually start by exploring the connections of my friends.

Having people in my "neighborhood" is a relatively easy concept for me now (although I was a little confused at first). I find people, or they find me, and we connect. Usually the connection goes two ways, but not always. I like to learn about the people I am connecting with so that I am sure that their words/pictures/view of the world will enhance/change/fit with my world as seen through Vox. If a person who hasn't written much in their blog connects to me, chances are good that I will wait a bit before connecting back. I am happy that they connected to me, and I will probably connect with them too, but I don't do it automatically. I read them, and/or look at their pictures to see who they are.

I do this because I know that one day Vox will be filled with hundreds of thousands of people - hopefully millions of them. And if I connect to them all I will have a tidal wave of posts to read and keep up with every day. On the one hand the diversity of this approach is extremely appealing and yet the sheer number of posts that would result feels overwhelming. There are only so many hours in a day, and Vox is already getting quite a lot of them (which is why my husband started calling me a "blogger").

"Friendship" ups the ante for me considerably. Early on, when the only way to read someone was to befriend them, everyone I encountered became a friend. My definition was very open - much more open than in my life offline. Over time, as my circle of people grew and the privacy tools were put in place, I started to think about separating my posts by audience. At some point I realized that I needed my Vox rules of friendship to map closer (but not exactly) to my rules of friendship in real life.

One of my Vox rules of friendship is that it be a two-way street. This comes directly from my life and means that if I have marked someone as my friend, and they haven't after a few weeks or months reciprocated, then I will reevaluate the "friendship." Perhaps I like them more than they like me? Perhaps their definition of friendship is more stringent than mine? In the end, of course, I have no idea. I only know that I am revealing personal posts to someone who is not comfortable revealing personal posts to me. And when I put it to myself that way, I start to feel uncomfortable revealing so much. At which point I often change the friendship status to put them back in the neighborhood. After all, I still like reading them. And perhaps later things will change again and we will befriend each other. Vox, like life, can be like that.

I realize that my rules are my own and possibly don't reflect the rules of any other person around me - even my friends. It's also possible that my way of approaching friendship is out of sync with social networking in general and that over time I will need to adjust my rules to fit the medium. Perhaps it's my demographic (older, married with small children) rearing its ugly head. I don't know. But I'm curious enough to keep going forward, making connections and (hopefully) new friends along the way, so that I can find out.