i received an email from facebook today/yesterday/last week saying that you have requested to be added as my friend. for many reasons i have been doing some thinking about what it means to be someone’s friend lately. htis was partly brought about when i was walking down the main street of the town where i live, and coming towards me on the other side of the road, walking in the opposite direction was a work colleague with whom i have been trying to make friends for a number of years. there are certain things we have in common, although there are also plenty of ways in which we are different. we have exchanged a number of gifts and we have worked together successfully on a couple of projects. i respect his intelligence. but there is something lacking in our ... relationship. which i wouldn’t call it a friendship. it doesn’t have the level of intimacy or trust required, in my mind at least, to be called a friendship, and he has resisted my gestures to take the relationship further.
i know this is a kind of seinfeldian moment but i can only interpret his behaviour as : he doesn’t want to be my friend. he is happy to be collegial, cordial and to engage in light hearted banter, or to have a rant about a work issue with me. but whilst he is friend-ly, he does not want to be, what i would consider, a friend - and this is more or less how i feel about your friend request. i don't really want you looking at my wall, i don't want to share my friends with you and i don't want you to know which groups i belong to or what i have been reading on google reader. no hard feelings ok?
fortunately for me i am not a particularly needy person, i am quite self sufficient. i can entertain myself for days on end without feeling the need for any human contact at all, so i would not be bothered by this. but i can imagine some people being quite shattered when their obvious gestures at wanting to be someone’s friend are rejected. this particular day i decided not to cross the road to say hello to him, as i often did and he didn’t cross the road to say hello to me either, as he often did. i had a look over a couple of times to see if he had seen me : it seemed like he hadn’t. i kept walking and so did he.
but i feel awkward not responding to friend requests. you do interpret it as someone is walking towards you and smiling and waving and you are ignoring them. a very clever marketing idea, but i must continue to resist. if you are interested in me and what i am doing or thinking, most of my stuff is always accessible from my page at joh.net - if you really want to be my friend send me a message - on facebook if you like, or a postcard. or wave and smile at me when you see me walking down the street, the next time you are in town. depending on who you are i might smile and wave back. if we've both got time maybe we can have a cup of tea or go for a beer. oh except i don’t drink anymore. that makes it more difficult for me to make friends. but then that makes me wonder about the kinds of friendships that are based on beer. maybe you can have a beer, and i can have a sparkling apple juice.
but don't feel upset if i ignore your facebook friend request ok?. it's just one of those things. and life is short.
you know?
:1
all the best
joh.