Has it really come to this?

jamiea — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:37:50 -0500

I've been having a great time on Facebook lately. It's been so much
fun reconnecting with old friends, classmates, family and interacting
with current friends. That's part of the reason why I adore the
Internet. The miles between people are so few. In a few minutes, I
can upload new pictures of the girls that can be seen instantly by the
family, friends and loved ones we have spread around the country.

And,
you know, I'm not one of those people that forgets others easily. If
you spend time in my life, I think about you. Maybe not often or all
the time, but definitely every once in a while. I wonder about how
you're doing or what's going on in your life. If the things I knew you
wanted came to pass. If you're happy or sad or what has changed about
you.

About a week ago I sent a "friend" request to someone I had
known casually from an Internet group before Emily was born. We had
never met, but for the time that we posted together, she came to know a
lot of things about me and I knew a lot about her. Today I had my
"friend" request rejected.

She just doesn't have time.

And
I'm wondering....again.....what sort of life we lead, in general, if we
don't have time for one more contact, one more friend. I wondered this
years ago when, at a scrapbook crop with people whom I doubted I would
be friends with (yet hoped to be friendly with) the group at large
agreed that they just had too many obligations to make any more friends.

Who are these people who are too busy for friends?

After
that night at the scrapbooking crop, I cut off contact with the people
who just didn't have time to make more friends. Why extend myself to
them and why bother? And, I feel the same way about my rejected
"friend" request today. Obviously this isn't the sort of person I want
to have a relationship with, no sour grapes intended (particularly
since the excuse of not having time to keep up with anyone else via a
social networking site that updates everyone at once seems a
little....fishy. Or stupid. I'm not sure which And I'm not
interested relationships with fishy people or stupid people either).

But
it does, in my mind, post a larger question about the choices we make
as a society and about where we put importance. I'm not like Emily in
that I believe that everyone can be bosom buddies and that a few hours
spent in happy play equates to best friends. I know as you enter
adulthood that real friendships are hard won and few and far between,
but the carte blanche rejection of general friendship across social
classes (the person who rejected my "friendship" today would consider
herself very urban and savvy and probably above the middle class
suburban moms who admitted to it as well) is perplexing to me.
Particularly when the excuse given is 'out of time".

I
understand how hard it can be to manage families and obligations, work
and fun. I'm sitting right in the middle of it too, attempting to
balance Emily's school time, her need for a social life, Cadence's play
dates, Eric's work obligations, social outings and family obligations.
The only difference is, I'm not managing my own work obligations (which
I probably make up for with Cadence's schedule), but there still seems
to be time inside of my admittedly busy life to reach out when I can to
those who reach towards me. It doesn't make sense not to. What kind
of people have we become (myself included of course, because I'm right
up there with people who can't find "time" to return e-mails or make
phone calls or, this year, send out Christmas cards) that we reject
connections with other human beings?

Doesn't that seem....

......well......

....inhuman?

Isn't
our emotional connections to each other, our highly structured,
hierarchical relationships one of the things that sets us apart from
Mighty Joe Young and his band of primates?

Honestly, it's not
really about the Facebook thing. My fondness for this person obviously
wasn't returned and I don't want to be a pity add. ;o) As I tell Emily
multiple times a school year, we just can't all be friends with
everyone and that much is true, but we can always make time to lend an
ear, extend a hand and put ourselves out there into the greater
universe and wait for the good that will come back.

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Has it really come to this?