Occasionally, on the social media to which I subject myself, namely Facebook, I find that people often embark upon a periodic process of streamlining or simplifying friend lists, to "get back to the basics", to drop casual acquaintances in favor of profound friendships or family only. This tendency was exemplified last year by my son's then-girlfriend who expressed her dissatisfaction with people who engaged in social null sounds, who would greet her briefly in passing or ask her how her day was going but with whom she had no real connection. The issue at point was if anyone really cares to have an honest answer to the question "How are you?" and what it all means in the light of humanity's inability to communicate one with another in the absence of real concern.
These two related issues have me thinking about relationships and connections. Having recently moved 700 miles to a city where I knew no one except my wife and daughter, I have had to begin anew my social connections. Meeting neighbors, joining a church, talking to people at the gym; all of these I have done to rebuild my social life.
And I realize anew that all connections and relationships I make are important to me. Humans are inherently intensely social, depending upon a varied and lively contact with others for sustenance. Every day we seek out other people on many different levels. Casual acquaintances, family relationships going back decades, profound and deep friendships, love affairs and marriages, all are variations of the constant of two people talking to each other in a common tongue.
Too many casual relationships can bring a feeling of disjointedness, or shallowness rather than connectedness. But casual friendships offer a daily affirmation of belonging to one group or another. When I meet someone I barely know by sight in the grocery store and exchange a quick "How is it going?", I am not brushing someone off as not meriting further attention, I am actually acknowledging the mutual admiration there. "I see you, I don't know so much about you, but you are known to me and I acknowledge that". That is the real message given. If I ask the question "How are you?" I am not generally looking for an answer other than the null "Fine. And you?" but on the occasions when a real answer necessitating listening and responding presents itself, I am delighted to be called upon for this deeper interaction.
Too many profound and intimate relationships, on the other hand, both cheapen the nature of these friendships and exhaust the participants. If two or three people are your most intimate confidantes, the effort necessary to sustain these are within any one's grasp. But imagine the horror of having a dozen or more friends of this nature! Would you ever be able to sleep, to rest, or would you spend all your time responding to them, suffocating and being suffocated in all the depths of someone else's innermost desires? And in order to honor the sacred nature of a soul mate or best friend, that relationship should be unique. Can you recall the hurt you felt when your "best friend" in grammar school announced that now you were no longer the only best friend, that now you were one of several best friends? Or how much it hurt your child when it happened to him or her a generation later?
We swim in a sea of other people, and there are varying degrees of connection that we each need. But in common we all thrive in places where there are rich and varying relationships that we create and sustain. I am thankful both for my casual acquaintances, among whom are many with whom I have little in common other than community, my satisfyingly profound once-in-a-lifetime relationships like my best friend who is also my wife, and all the others in between.
If I see you in the grocery store or at the gas station and ask you how your day is or simply nod and smile, feel free to respond in kind, or to pour out all the details of what is on your mind. Either way, I will appreciate you. And I'll understand what you are saying. And I'll understand your deeper meaning.
As the close of the classic "It's a Wonderful Life" shows, "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."
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