Re: Friends/sysdharma (zaibatsu), 10/30/2019
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User sysdharma recently wrote about making new friends after
moving abroad[1]. I had been thinking on this subject before
reading that post, and have meant to respond. No time like
the present.
My friends have generally come from a few pools of
associations: work (before I worked at home), church, school
(when I was in school), and family (including extended
family). I'll add pubnix to that list, in more recent years,
due to the amount of time I spend here, and the quality of
conversation that I encounter; I consider you all friends.
That makes me think that I may need to define "friend" at
this point.
Webster says that a friend(1) is "one attached to another by
affection or esteem." That's pretty loose, but reasonable.
I've encountered far more sentimental definitions, but
I'm not sure I appreciate them, because they introduce
unnecessary requirements and restrictions on the word. For
example, if a well-meaning individual says "a friend is
someone who is always there for you", then I'm obligated to
disagree, because I'm incapable of always being there for my
friends, but I love them all the same. If a deeply emotional
person notes that "a true friend will always respect you and
let you be yourself" then my sensibilities would be piqued,
because I've benefited from friends telling me to change,
pointing out my flaws (purposefully or not), and generally
smacking me around a bit when I'm out of line (which is
often).
With Webster's friend(1), I feel that I can safely call my
affectionate and/or esteemed acquaintances, whether in the
flesh or digital, "friends". To be honest, I detest the need
to distinguish between physical/digital when it comes to
friendship (after all, they are just different forms of
communication between actual humans), but there is one
distinction that I feel I must make: the ease with which one
makes and keeps friends in digital space vs. the energy
required to maintain friendship in physical space.
My wife once observed that most friends generally exist in a
radius of proximity. In her experience, the radius was about
a 15-20 minute driving time. Within that space, friendship
was easy, outside that space it became much more difficult.
Obviously, this is because those friends have expectations
of physical interaction (most of them, anyway). These are
people that we meet, enjoy, and meet again, with our bodies.
Digital friends, on the other hand, accept that there may be
a world (or more, in the future) of space between you. They
understand that you're not physically present, and they
don't require you to be. They appreciate what you have to
offer mind-to-mind, spirit-to-spirit, whatever-to-whatever,
directly. And now I'm starting to introduce requirements as
to what a friend is! But, it's only to distinguish between
physical and digital...
Perhaps sysdharma means mostly that it's hard to make new
friends in physical space. I have to agree (with my guess
at what sysdharma means). My experience with friends in
physical space has been less than perfect. I have my wife,
who is an amazing friend of the finest variety. I have my
brothers, who I share a unique and unbreakable bond with, in
spite of our differences. I have a "best friend" from my
youth, who I refuse to let go no matter how far he is from
me, or how long it's been since we talked/emailed. These are
my primary group of fellow travelers. These are my friends,
no matter what.
Then I have the rest of my friends in physical space. These
come from the pools mentioned above. They're people I meet
by chance, and enjoy, and who (presumably) enjoy me as
well. Sometimes I encounter people that I enjoy who are
too busy to be a friend (in the invented-requirements
sense). Sometimes I encounter a friend and we have amazing
experiences together; but then I move, and my wife's
proximity rule comes into play on their part, and they don't
really email me back, don't really want to connect. That's a
little crushing, but they are only human after all.
Life is pulling at me, otherwise I'd ramble more (you can
thank life!). To sysdharm, if he's reading, I'd say this:
embrace your digital friends, who are real, and do what you
can with the people directly around you as well. Ask some of
us for our address, or send us yours, and see what
our handwriting is like. Accept that in physical space,
friendship is quite different, and more work. Maybe you
already know all this. Know one more thing, and that is
you have friends here on gopher that enjoy reading your
thoughts, and are glad you're here with us in this small,
fleeting way.
[1]
gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/sysdharma/phlog/./2019.10.15
