Friend Friends

Sunday, V and I were having brunch with a new acquaintance of hers named Aishah, and her husband, Jim. They met at a networking event — both ladies are in the nascent stages of new careers that require contacts and clients — and were sharing an encounter with a Mary Kay saleslady who was particularly aggressive. At one point, she sidled up to Aishah and asked her how long she and V had known each other. “Are you friend friends?” We all laughed at the phrase. Friendship squared, a new category of networking speak not unlike the junior high “does he like like you?” attempt create a relationship taxonomy.

Earlier, we were at church, and the sermon was about the meeting Jesus had with 10 lepers on the road to Jerusalem. (Long story short: Jesus tells them to go to the temple and they’ll be welcomed back into society, and they follow his advice, and as they’re walking they become miraculously healed. Nine of the lepers start racing to the temple in their excitement to start their lives over again. One turns back and thanks Jesus for the miracle.) Every time I’d heard this gospel sermonized, it was turned into some sort of sales pitch for the priesthood, as if religious calling were expected of 10% of the young Catholic population, like tithing. But today’s sermon was turned on the subject of gratitude, and it went beyond the “good manners” aspect of the tenth leper to ponder what it means to go out of one’s way to express gratitude for a good deed done. This kind of hit me, because — as any longtime friend of mine will attest — I’m fairly selfish with my communication, and most of my friendships die due to a lack of it.

I don’t wish to martyr myself with this one. (Did a pretty good job of that with the mom post last week.) Most people I know lose a fair percentage of friendships because they don’t keep up a phone/e-mail/Facebook correspondence. Almost all friend relationships end that way. Maybe even 9 out of 10. It’s the rare and wonderful connection that compels us to turn around on our road, look back, walk back, and chat with an old friend about all the wonderful times once had. This is why friendships can be such temporal things based in a specific time and place, and why Facebook is so deeply, profoundly weird.

Aishah — our new friend, according to the good time we had at brunch today as well as my Facebook page — said something else that stuck with me, that she skipped her high school reunion because she already knew what became of everybody and what they’re up to. This is true. My college class is having its 10th reunion this weekend, and I didn’t even consider going, even though there are some people I would desperately love to reconnect with. I wouldn’t go not only because my own curiosity feels sated (and my pocketbook couldn’t afford it, actually), but because I don’t think anyone else would go, either. Maybe Ben. He lives there. I miss Ben. And I saw a status update from Meghan that she was going. That’s cool. I liked Meghan. 

These people, most of whom I’m “friends” with on Facebook, were, at a formative part of my life, friend friends. Without Facebook, they would now be memories, and memories are something that we are drawn to rekindle, but as “friends,” they remain a quick click and chat away, and so we can safely ignore the friend friend era and allow the relationship to coast on nebulous “friend”-ship forever, or until the next Facebook comes along and we have to extend digital handshakes with everyone again. I suppose the people you forget to “friend” are the ones who were just friends and not friend friends. 

[Sidebar: ‘friend’ is one of those words that looks more and more bizarre the more you repeat it.]

Now that we’re actively disseminating wedding reception invites, I’m forced to confront all the gradients of friendship in a visceral way, passing some out to acquaintances because they happen to live nearby and it’s no big thing to have them party with us; carefully weighing mailed invitations to out-of-town friend friends to make sure we give everyone who really loves us a chance to come without puzzling those who didn’t think we were that big of a deal or haven’t talked to us in forever; dealing with relatives, whose importance is measured in blood ties even though we all have those close relatives whom we would otherwise never meet, and those thrice-removed cousins we’d be friends with in any circumstance, and all stops between. 

I find all this bewildering. Confronting and handling friendships is not a talent of mine. Until today, I was somewhat content to file that away as a piece of my personality: “Plays well with others; ignores them once they leave the room.” One of the few things that gives me true anxiety is placing a phone call to someone I used to speak with every day, but haven’t spoken to in more than a year. Of course it always goes well if I do call (or e-mail, or whatever), but holy shit, the nerves. Sometimes, I actually sweat.

This gratitude sermon, though. This gnawing sense that Facebook “friends” aren’t solving my anxiety but putting it somewhere neutral and wrong, like dust swept under a rug. I don’t think I’ll ever have the makeup to juggle hundreds of social obligations at once. I just suck at it, and I value the few close friendships I have too much to allow them to suffer in a sudden Jesus-based resolution to give more freely of my time. I just wonder if, next time I spot an opportunity to turn around on the road and go back, thank the person who put me on that path and for the revelation they gave me, if I’ll take it, no matter the inconvenience or the sweat. 

As for Facebook, I still get it. I get that it helps me push these posts out there to people who might, for one reason or another, give a fuck what goes through my head. But I also find it, as a social tool, to be this blunt instrument of passive aggression, good for personal marketing and little else. Facebook, unless we use it with creativity and panache, threatens to turn us all into weirdly pushy Mary Kay salespeople with the details of our lives.

I’m certainly not the first person to talk about its commodification of relationships (a meme that has existed since Friendster, if not before), but I hope that the imperial clothes are becoming a little more transparent to everyone. I hope we’re starting to see its blank white page as an asylum for relationships that went insane along the way. I hope we’re starting to laugh at the need for the phrase “friend friend,” an exponential description of the life that exists beyond the passed business card, the passing wave, the click of a little blue fist with a defiant thumb in the air. “I like this. And I’m hitchhiking through a social life. I hope this button gets me a few miles closer to an actual conversation with you, someday.”