Today I got to spend some good times with some good friends. I love when that happens. As my friend and I chatted we remarked on just how difficult it is to have good friends. Why is that?
A few months ago, in a desperate effort to build deeper relationships I sent this woman a facebook message asking if she wanted to be my friend. It seriously felt wierd asking someone to be my friend, but then we actively began pursuing building a friendship. We met for breakfast one Saturday a month becuase we are both busy moms and that's really all we could handle. It took awhile but we kind of forced a friendship on ourselves. We both needed it.
Turns out, we aren't the only ones feeling like we just don't have deep relationships like we used to. As we wondered outloud about this afternoon we bounced around ideas. We could cast the blame on busyness, or other people, or whatever - but I think one idea stood out more than others.
It was just a few years ago that we didn't all have Facebook. When you saw a friend you'd have things to talk about because it hadn't already been seen on social media. You'd have pictures to show, or stories to tell. It feels like we have a lot of people we know, a little. I have 547 friends on Facebook. That's 547 people who already know most of what there is to know about me. The only thing left to share is the deep down stuff. But if I can't build a relationship by talking about the shallow things, I'll have a hard time opening up the deep things.
Another problem is that before we even get a chance to meet someone or hang out with them, or even if we've just met once or twice - we check out their Facebook page and determine who they are. We go and "stalk" them, scouring their page of the last 2 years to see what they like or do. We make judgements of whether or not we'd make good friends based on what they've put on the internet, and at the same time take away great opportunities for them to share about themselves and help us build those deeper relationships. One of my dearest friends and I have very few things in common. If you judged the two of us based on our Facebook pages you would find very little that matched in the way of interests and hobbies. Other than being moms that love Jesus, we're very different, but we love each other deeply. We encourage each other and lift one another up. Facebook might not have matched us, but years of spending time together did.
Facebook isn't terrible. It isn't bad. It was created to connect people, not keep them from connecting. But I wonder if sharing everything, all the time is hurting our connections more than helping them.
We kind of know a lot of people, but who do we really know?
Thoughts?
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