Making Connections, (Not) Making Friends

Recently, a friend invited me out to dinner with her SAHM group. I'm not a mom, let alone a stay-at-home one, but my social life has been a little lacking lately and since it's always nice to meet new people and my friend's heart was in the right place, I decided to tag along. The fact that the dinner was at The Melting Pot on Ladies Night had something to do with it as well. There's just something about The Melting Pot that I love. Maybe because I'm a snacker and I love the little pieces of food and dipping the little pieces into different flavors... I'm not sure. But the mix of tastes, scrumptious martinis, reduced cost, and the relaxed experience itself makes Ladies Night worthwhile.

Which is how I found myself: childless, near 40 and single, sharing a fondue pot with four (much younger) mom's and one pregnant woman. Which, if you've ever been to The Melting Pot, you know is kind of an intimate experience to have with people you don't know. Eating food essentially out of the same pot- there's something familial and tribal about that. It's something we don't often experience with our families, let alone strangers, in our hurried lives. Smalltalk ensued, something I'm not a great fan of in the first place. The conversation turned to where we had all come from, and how we all ended up in Grand Rapids, or in some cases, back in Grand Rapids. I explained to one of the moms that although I had been in Grand Rapids for 12 years and have a lot of friends, I don't have a lot of people to spend time with. She agreed and said she was in a similar situation. "It can be hard to meet people," I said, "Once you get to-"

"No," she cut in. "It's different when you have kids." 

Oh. I didn't know this was going to be one of those things I "don't understand" because I don't have kids. Someone forgot to let me in on the secret of how to meet people as a single adult with no kids. I'm sure it's not easy being a SAHM without a lot of friends. I don't dispute that. I just don't think it's easy being anyone without at least a few like-minded adults to spend time with on a regular basis. At least if you're married you have a spouse to talk to sometimes. Single people don't talk to their cats because they're crazy. They talk to their cats so they don't go crazy! 

When we're growing up, potential friends are all around us- in our neighborhood, at school, at church, sports, etc... Once we get past high school and college, it can be rough to meet new people, let alone make new friends. And maintaining old friendships isn't always easy, either. Our modern society is transitory. People often don't remain in their hometowns, near family and friends. Technology helps us keep in touch but it sure is nice to sit across from a real live person at the coffee shop sometimes instead of a laptop. To compound matters, I've noticed that many people react with suspicion and even sometimes resentment when a stranger or casual acquaintance reaches out to them. I've been guilty of this myself. We need to remember to leave ourselves open to new friendships because we never know who is out there waiting for us. 

I felt verbally chastised by the woman who spoke the above words to me. I'm sure she didn't mean to offend, she seemed like a nice person. There was no malice in her tone. But with her words, a wall went up between us. It was clear that she had, rather quickly and with virtually no real information about me, discarded the idea that I may be of some value to her socially or emotionally. I wasn't enough like her. Some of my closest friends, at first glance, don't seem to be much like me. But sometimes it's the differences between friends that prove their value and provide much needed perspective into situations in our own lives. 

Our friends don't have to be just like us, any more than do the people we do business with. Any good businessperson can expound on the importance of networking. Well, sometimes networking is useful not just in the workplace, but in our emotional lives as well. And that includes all of us. Not just stay at home moms. I'm glad I went to dinner though, even though I didn't meet a new best friend. It was eye-opening, no one at the table meowed in response to any of my comments, and the fondue was great- especially the chocolate! 


  

Posters on my Wall: A Liberal's Agenda on Facebook

I'm a liberal and I have an agenda.

Ok, I don't really have an "agenda." But I have a lot of opinions on what's right and wrong and I read a lot. When I find an article that I like on the Internet, I like to put it up on my Facebook wall where I can easily find it and where other people who might be interested can see it and read it too. Because to me, one of the values of social networking, is being able to share with my friends and see the things they'd like to share with me. Sometimes I just post stuff because I see it on a site, don't have time to read it, and want to remember to go back later.

Since I'm a liberal, and might I say that I'm probably more liberal than many, a lot of the articles I post have (surprise!) a liberal bent. I believe in unions, collective bargaining, and workers rights. I'm pro-choice and feminist. I’m sex positive and pro-sex education. I don't go to church but if I did I'd be Unitarian, although I only half jokingly refer to myself as pagan. I am a supporter of public schools and teachers and I believe our educational system is failing our kids not because of "bad teachers," but because lawmakers are trying (and failing) to legislate learning. I vote Democrat. I support small farms and local businesses and I recycle. I think gay people should be able to get married and sick people should be able to smoke pot. I feel that health insurance is a right, not a privilege, and addiction is a disease, not a choice. (And by the way, I'm not interested in taking your guns away. I like to shoot and I'm good at it.)

I like to read about all of those subjects, along with art, science, Apple, literature, LOL cats, religion, philosophy, food, dysfunction, crime, and lists from the editors at Cracked.com and product descriptions from the geniuses at Woot! and ThinkGeek, along with a million other semi-relevant topics. I’m diverse that way and a lot of what I find interesting makes it to my facebook wall in the form of a shared link. Sometimes my shares get people talking, and sometimes they just serve as markers of something that caught my attention for a few stay minutes of the day. I like to think that my facebook wall serves as a sort of time capsule of my interests over time.

The problem with my more political postings, however, is that not all of my friends are liberal. Some are pretty middle of the road and some are conservative either in economics, social issues, or both. Most of the time, things stay pretty civil. Friends are friends for a reason, and politics and religion, while they can bind, can also sever relationships, so I try and balance presenting the issues I care about with the feelings of the people I like. I'm not usually offended by conservative friends. The problem is that it seems when I post anything of a political content, people seem to feel the need to argue politics. I don't mind an occasional exchange of ideas as long as things stay civil. I realize other people have opinions that differ from mine and I respect that. Sometimes I'm interested hearing their ideas on things and sometimes I'm not. I'll carry a discussion so far, but if it turns into an argument, I'll just agree to disagree.

Because I don't want to argue politics, some people have implied that I shouldn't post about it either. I'm not sure I follow that logic. The reason I don't like to argue politics is that I won't be changing my mind. I feel the way I do about most issues not because I'm "towing the party line," but because I've thought them through, researched them, and/or experienced them myself. It's not often that I change my mind on a particular topic, although when I have in the past, it's certainly wasn't because I was badgered into doing so. I'm also not posting about politics to bait anyone, or "stir things up." Everyone has had different experiences and, hopefully, formed their own opinions accordingly. I'm always happy to explain why I feel a certain way about something, but I find arguing politics exhausting and pointless. Will I talk politics? Yes, usually I will. I enjoy talking with other liberals, just as history buffs like talking to other history buffs and musicians like talking music. I also enjoy talking with some of my conservative friends because there are issues that we see eye to eye on and it's interesting to find out where people's values and experiences have led them because we all come by these things in different ways.

I look at it this way; Facebook is kind of like a big house that we all live in together. There are common areas and private areas. My profile is my private area, my room. Posts are like posters we put on the walls of our rooms. I can put whatever posters on my wall that I want. I promise not to put my posters on your wall, unless I know you'll like them too. If you're my friend, you're invited into my space but I don't need you to tell me I have bad taste in posters. If you don't want to look at them, you can simply not enter my room by blocking posts by me from reaching your news feed. If you feel really strongly, you can just unfriend me. Or you can be tolerant, as I promise to be of you. If you start posting about how you hate Jews/gays/Mexicans/Muslims/Lolcats, and they should all be lined up and shot, chances are I'm going to unfriend you because I find intolerance and ignorance deeply offensive. I won't unfriend you based on the fact that we vote for different candidates or we don't agree on issues like abortion or economic policy.

I won't unfriend you, but I probably won't take the bait either. I hope you understand.

Rediscovering the Importance of Girlfriends

There was a time in my life when almost all my good friends were male. Many years, in fact. Part of it was the novelty, because I had always been intimidated by boys in school. I grew up a little isolated and I barely understood other girls, let alone boys with their loud ways. As I grew older, I didn't feel comfortable with most women I met. I wasn't thin and I wasn't that concerned about dieting. I rarely wore makeup and never learned to do fancy things with my hair. I wasn't having children or hoping to have children. Most women I met I didn't feel like I fit in with. And after high school, I wasn't meeting a lot of other women anyway. I missed my high school girlfriends, many of whom had dispersed off into different parts of the country.

Over the years I met a lot of amazing, strong women. I had role models and old friends I had kept in touch with but from whom I was separated by distance. I am close to my mom. But I didn't have any women friends who I could call up and meet for lunch. I still don't have very many of them. But I have rediscovered why friendships between women are so precious. I've cultivated them where I can. Some online, some old friends I don't see very often, some old friends I've started to see more frequently, some family, some co-workers. Some the same age and some years older or younger.

I still have a lot of male friends. And they're great, I love them. They appreciate my cooking, remind me not to take things too seriously, feed my cats when I go out of town, carry things to my basement, help me with yard work and car repairs. Some of them commiserate with me over relationships and some make me feel funny or get angry at injustices they feel have been perpetrated against me. They take me to dinner, buy me silly little gifts when I'm feeling down and give me a male perspective on problems. My male friends are wonderful to me in many ways and I love them but they are still vastly different relationships than the ones I have with my female friends.

I've gone through some tough times in the last few years and in riding them out I've noticed a few differences in the way my male versus female friends react to problems. The men tend to disappear. They can't fix my problem and they don't know what to say so they kind of vanish into the ether until things even out. Some of them give me a lot of advice and then if I don't follow it, they get angry. Which really isn't that helpful when dealing with stressful situations. You want your friends around you, not purposefully staying away or being angry with you. I know not all men are like this but it's been my experience that its pretty common. They mean well, they just don't react in ways that I understand. Which by now I am starting to expect, even though it still hurts sometimes.

My female friends, however, will sit with me for hours. Sometimes we talk about our problems, sometimes we distract each other with other topics. Sometimes we don't talk much at all. The best thing is, they are always here (or there!) for me. Sometimes we can only talk on the phone, via text or over the Internet but even when they aren't "here" they are available, concerned, understanding and always ready with a sense of humor and a dose of perspective. Most of us have gotten to an age where we've had a few disappointing relationships with men, perhaps a divorce. Even if we're married we know that a romantic relationship, no matter how wonderful the spouse, can't and shouldn't be expected to meet our every need.

And so, if we're lucky, we have our girlfriends. These relationships are precious and we need to treat them as such. Though our lives are all busy, we need to keep in touch, reach out, get together, or simply send a note or an email. For all the smart, funny, caring, beautiful women I know... thank you. You are appreciated and you are important!

Tales from the Dark Side

Now that I've spent a significant amount of time extolling the virtues of Facebook, I've got another point to discuss. A somewhat darker point of view if you'll indulge me. Because I feel that for all the ways that Facebook can strengthen relationships, it can also tear them apart.

When I refer to relationships, I am not speaking just of romantic relationships but friendships and familial relationships as well. By now, even if we don't know someone personally who has had Facebook affect one of their relationships in a negative way, we've at least read about it. We've also seen horror stories of child neglect. I would argue that some of these stories are in the extreme. People who neglect their children for the Internet would probably neglect them in some other way if the Internet/Facebook wasn't available. People who cheat on a spouse might very well cheat with someone they didn't meet on Facebook. What should be sobering, however, is the thought that although we may not be endangering the physical well-being of our friends and families, we may be engaging in behaviors that damage our emotional connections to them.

I'm single with no kids at home. I don't feel particularly guilty about sitting by myself on the couch at night and engaging others via Facebook for hours on end. (Although sometimes my cats make desperate bids for attention.) What I do sometimes wonder is if in doing so, I am wasting time I should be using to develop relationships with the people around me. Not just the people I know, but people I should be meeting. But I'm an introvert. I don't play a sport and the idea doesn't really appeal to me. I don't attend church, school or have a particular hobby, like scrap-booking or playing the guitar which might put me in touch with other people. All my hobbies are pretty individualized, like reading, cooking and gardening. Could I join a reading group, take a cooking class or join some sort of local gardening group? Probably. But I don't, partly because Facebook gives me an out. Why put myself "out there" when I can sit at home on my couch where I feel safe and talk to people I already know, even if my knowledge of them is superficial and I may never see them in person again?

This isn't to say I don't value the relationships that Facebook has brought me. I've met some wonderful people online who I would have probably never encountered otherwise. They enrich my life on a daily basis and for that I am grateful. I've deepened other relationships which has been amazing, too. What I find missing is the ability to sit on my couch in the evening with another warm body across the room. I miss another voice, the easiness of being in the physical presence of someone who knows me well. I wonder how many people, like me, sit on their couch each night and communicate with others via Facebook while their kids play on their own and their spouse sits in silence on the other side of the room, absorbed in television, or perhaps on Facebook as well. Recognize yourself? I thought so.

I'm guilty as well. I have a Blackberry. An iPod Touch. I use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Blogger, etc... I am never not connected. How many times have I checked my Blackberry during dinner? Answered a text? Checked my Facebook? Plenty of times and often to the irritation of the person dining with me. How many times have I sat and waited impatiently for a dining partner to do the same? More times than I can count. We live in the most connected time the world has ever seen. Almost any information is immediately and constantly at our fingertips and we have more ability than ever to influence and manipulate that information through sites such as Digg, Facebook and Wikipedia. We are marketed and advertised to constantly and we're learning to market and advertise ourselves, as if our personal preferences and habits are products of some sort.

I've been thinking lately that I need to make an effort to put down the phone, turn off the computer and reconnect. I've been thinking that I might start asking people to do that when they're with me as well.
I've been the person on the other side of the room being ignored in favor of the person on the other end of the computer. Sometimes it's ok but most of the time, it's not much fun. Although it's helped me develop and further some relationships, Facebook has also hurt several of my relationships. One or two of them have been damaged and/or changed irreparably. One friendship has ended for good.

I want to embrace social media and, for the most part, I do. But I have to remind myself of a few things from time to time:

1. There are some things about me that no one needs to know about. Things that are private. 
2. It's easy to get caught up in other people's drama, but you don't always know the whole story.
3. The people in the room with me deserve my attention as much if not more than the ones on screen.
4. Besides being supportive, offering my expertise/opinion and trying to make them laugh, there's not much I can do about other people's troubles. 
5. People can pretend, online, to be someone they're not. Maybe not on purpose, and sometimes even people you may have met. Unless you know them very, very well, keep in mind that things and people online aren't always what they appear. 

When you think about it, these are pretty good rules to follow offline as well.

I love Facebook and Twitter. Foursquare is fun and blogging serves its purpose. They're all useful tools not to mention addicting and enjoyable. But they can be trouble if we let them. I want to manage my social connections, not allow them to run my life. So this weekend, in addition to spending time with my friends on Facebook, I'll be spending time with friends and family offline as well. All the way offline! And I challenge you to do the same. 

The Amazing and Heartwarming Power of Social Media, Part 2

In my last post I talked about how great Facebook has been for me in terms of having a built-in support system. In this post I want to talk about a couple instances of Facebook bringing people together and reminding me of what I believe is the basic goodness of humanity. Which is something that, if you read the news, you may have doubts about. I know that from time to time I sure do.

In December of 2010, shortly before Christmas, I lost a dear friend named Alie. Although I knew Alie in Real Life, I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her. We were separated by distance, circumstance and for about the last year, by the confines of her illness. Even when she was well, Alie wasn't a social butterfly. In fact, she was a bit of a recluse. Because of Facebook, I was able to get to know her much better than I would have if I'd had to depend on infrequent visits. Even more old-fashioned methods of communication wouldn't have worked for us. Although Alie was a talented artist and a great friend, she wasn't much of a writer and she hated talking on the phone. But Alie loved the Internet. Here she was able to move past her social anxieties and her physical limitations and socialize with lots of people who played the same online games and shared her interests in Pokemon, cartoons and Japanese toys. Through Facebook and other message boards and websites, lots of people were able to get to know Alie and many of them- including some of my Facebook friends- came to love her for her gentle personality, and empathetic, generous nature.

After Alie passed away, there were no services for her and those of us who knew her felt we'd had no closure. Alie was an artist. She worked with children because she understood them and the things that were important to them. She loved little bits and pieces of interesting things that other people had discarded and much of her art was based around found objects and drawings of sweet, cartoonish dogs. She also spent many of what she considered the best years of her life living in the city of Detroit. Alie loved the city and found beauty in its decay. I wanted to honor Alie in some way and after doing a little poking around on the internet I found an organization that I think Alie would have loved, called Arts & Scraps. It's in Detroit and they recycle cast-off industrial materials as art supplies for under-served kids. Through the Causes application on Facebook I was able to set up a Holiday Wish in memory of Alie and asked people to donate $10 or what they felt they could afford. My friends and I, most of whom had never met Alie, raised $195 to benefit Arts & Scraps. I was touched that people would donate and I know Alie would have been as well.

Thanks to social networking, I was able to honor my friend in a way that would benefit someone else. Thanks to my friends and Alie's, ninety-eight children will take home a bag stuffed with art supplies. Ninety-eight children will receive the power to create, to potentially discover a talent or a hobby that could change their lives. Not a bad legacy.

Add to this the over 43,000 people on Facebook who have turned out to Pray for Baby Miranda and I get a pretty warm and fuzzy feeling. Baby Miranda is the child of an elementary school classmate of mine, Chad Cole. I haven't seen Chad since probably 6th grade, nor can I say I've really thought about him much since then although I remember him as being a nice kid. We weren't particularly friends and he disappeared to go to another school at some point, I'm not sure when.

I happened to be in my hometown of Jackson, MI this weekend and heard about a car accident I might not have known about otherwise. Snow was coming down fast and it was windy. The roads slicked up in no time and a crash occurred on I-94, near the Dearing Road exit. The news of a fatality from the accident traveled quickly- Sara, the 35-year-old wife of my former classmate who was expecting their first child on February 23, was declared dead on arrival at Allegiance Hospital. For a while it looked like there was one positive. Doctors were able to deliver Baby Miranda alive. Because of the trauma Sara had received to her uterus in the accident, however, Baby Miranda had been without oxygen for too long and she was born with no brain activity. Doctors gave her until Tuesday evening and so Chad and his family were able to spend some time with their new family member. Sadly, Miranda Cole never developed any signs of brain activity and she was removed from life support Tuesday evening. In the meantime, Chad continued to update what had been the blog tracking their pregnancy, Our Little Secret. It's heartbreaking stuff, for sure.

And yet... in the midst of this tragedy, someone started a Facebook group inviting people to pray for Baby Miranda. And the numbers started climbing. Now I'm not a particularly religious person and I'm not usually much for prayer groups. I respect it, it's just not my thing. But I know how important it is to feel supported. And I can't imagine the grief this newly widowed man, who I remember as a child, has yet to face. Sara and Miranda are at peace, but for the third member of their family, life must go on. Chad's situation echoes that endured by a dear friend of mine, quite a few years back. Life goes on, but it's never really the same. The miracle here is that over 43,000 people from all over the world, stand in support of this man and his family. There will surely be moments ahead of him where even the love and support of 43,000 strangers, family members and friends won't feel like enough. But in the end, faith and the joined hands of a community of strangers supporting him may just begin to seem like enough again and spring will come and the sun will shine again.

For me, Baby Miranda helps put things in perspective. I may still feel panicky and a little lost. But my personal losses are minimal and fleeting. It's a reminder that whether it's a group of 10 or 43,000, people are still basically good and kind. That if you're lucky, just when you feel the most alone, there are people who you didn't expect to be there, lifting you up.

The Amazing and Heartwarming Power of Social Media, Part 1

We hear a lot of negatives about social media in the news. If the studies and experts are to be believed, Facebook is tearing at the very fabric of our society. It seems like every day in the news, there are stories of marriages breaking up, jobs being lost, and even murders which can be traced in some way back to Facebook. Although I do think social networking has the potential to be abused (and if you really think about it, what in life doesn't have the potential for abuse?), I also feel the need to defend Facebook against the media's near constant allegations of evil because my experience has been almost universally positive.

I can't even tell you for sure how long I've been on Facebook. Maybe there's something, somewhere in my account settings, that tells me I've been a "member since" but I don't know where it is and I haven't been motivated to look for it. What I can tell you is that last year, a group of us planned our 20th high school class reunion and we did so for the most part over Facebook. If you had asked me five years ago if I would attend my 20th class reunion, I would have said no. Instead I wound up not only attending, but on the planning committee. Facebook put me in touch with former friends and classmates I'd never expected to see again. Rather than building up my reunion as an anxiety-laced event at which all my weaknesses would be simultaneously exposed to my former classmates, I was able to put things in perspective. I read their statuses. We've all grown up, become more ourselves and none of our lives are perfect. Instead of feeling competitive and possibly inadequate, I felt a kinship with my classmates that allowed me to enjoy the reunion and relish our shared history.

To me, Facebook has been like having the party you've always wanted to have where you invite all your closest friends and they all get along great and it's the most awesome time anyone has ever had. Which is reality would never work. Everyone would stand around uncomfortably and stare at each other and you'd be frantically trying to decide what music you could play that everyone would like or think of a joke that would miraculously break the ice and get all of your best friends to see that they should all be best friends too and everyone would hang out all the time and it would be super fun. Yeah, that would never happen. But the funny thing about Facebook is that sometimes it does. Sometimes my friends friend my other friends and they become friends and everything is super fun. Would those relationships carry over into real life? Who knows? But the one thing I do know is that without Facebook, that would most likely have been a moot question in the first place.

Last year I moved out on my own for the first time after a lifetime of living with other people. Not only did I move out, I moved out into my very own house. Buying a house had been my Big Dream for a long time and was something I'd thought I'd never get to do on my own, so it was a Big Deal for me. And because I was essentially going through the process by myself, it was even more important to me that my Facebook friends were with me, every step of the way, cheering me on. I mean who can argue with round-the-clock, unconditional love and support from a few hundred friends? It was pretty great.

Since I got the house, some not-so-great things have happened. A good friend of mine died too young in December, and most recently I lost my job of the last 12 years. There have been some good things too. I quit smoking and haven't had a cigarette since December 6, 2010. Each of these things has been made more bearable (and sometimes more celebratory), with the encouragement of several hundred friends, scattered all over the world. I don't know if my Facebook friends realize how much they've impacted my life and so I try to do my bit to cheer them on as well. So to all of you who laugh at my jokes, send virtual hugs when things are tough, donate to my causes, tell me how to unclog my bathroom drain, share my outrage over injustice and take the time to make me feel important... thank you. I hope I'm living up to my side of the bargain!