I was invited by someone I know into the world of orkut the other day and joined to help with his stats. It is a weird parallel way of talking with folk on the internet which, like FOAF, appears to feed off the fear of being contacted by someone you have not met. As if sitting for hours in front of glowing screens was not reason enough to think yourself privately a loser - now I need to build thinly veiled private networks of folk ranging from strangers to at best acquaintances.
And yet those points on my orkut network are called "friends". Like so many words co-opted by the web, this is a devaluation beyond imagination. I had one email each from four friends this week and that was a pretty good week. One was a best pal in high school, another from undergrad, another really from the years after undergrad and the last from law school sharing a brief note about the passing of a classmate. These folks are friends because they know things about my life, my personal weeknesses and value what I can offer based on years of knowing me. Others who I have spoken with this week via digital media are acquaintances, people I have known in contexts and not pissed me off particularly. Some have been in my house and I in their's once or twice, others I have never met we speaking only digitally. Have they - would they - get me home if I were heart sick and drunk? Would they give me $500 to get me through a bad point? Have they offered to help me move? I think you have to hit high on at least two out of three to be in the running for "friend".
At one job, a management style of the month was to refer to us all - the unowning workers - as "family". I held off calling one of the proponents of the theory in the middle of the night for a ride home or letting a loan ride for years. Why can't people leave my words "family" and "friends" alone, let them have the dignity only earned by time or blood.
Comments
Alan - February 7, 2004 12:20 PM
In my email this morning:<blockquote class="smalltext">Will Pate has approved your friend request.</blockquote>
Nils Ling - February 7, 2004 6:07 PM
I don't lend my friends money. I never offer to help someone move. And as far as getting you through a time when you're heartsick and drunk - well, I'll do that for just about anybody I like well enough to be around when they're drunk.
So my definition of "friend" is different than, say, yours. But I still found this to be a post that made me think a lot about the nature of "friendship" and how it is changing.
I have at least four "friends" I have met through the internet whom I consider to be as close or even closer than people I've known all my life. They know secrets I've never told another soul - it may be that they know those secrets because the relative "distance" between us was enough for me to feel confident in letting information out that I don't share. Or maybe it was the relative distance between them and the people in my "real" life - I could feel some degree of confidence that nothing I said would come back to haunt me.
My wife, who spends almost no time on the internet, often derides my network of what she calls "your imaginary friends". But they're not imaginary to me .. they're real and important to me and while I couldn't have imagined a life with them even ten years ago, I shudder now to imagine a life without them.
They live in places as disparate as Clearwater, Florida, New York City, Wenham, Mass., and Sacramento. All are women. I've met two in "real life", and if my life is long enough and timing and travel work out, I hope I will one day meet the others.
When I met the two friends in the flesh (as it were)there was not one instant of awkwardness or nervousness. It was exactly like meeting an old friend from high school or someone I once worked with: free-flowing conversation, laughter, that shorthand you develop with real friends that carries you through times when nothing needs to be said.
I've re-defined "friend" in the past eight or ten years - broadened my thinking about it, pushed back walls that others have.
As for "family" - well .. that's special. Show me the DNA - or hit the bricks.
Alan - February 7, 2004 6:16 PM
I don't think we are that different but that I would include the now disused "acquaintance". You and I have never met (I don't think) but have a healthy discussing relationship. That is an acquaintanceship. Most of the people I chat with on-line are of this category and it should be in itself a worthy one. Friends are relatively but an acquaintance can move into that place over time - and also later move from it. I don't know if I think as friendship can develop without the mutual giving and taking in real life - helping someone move, trusting them with a real safekeeping, holding their head out the window of a car as they ralph at 18.
Alan - February 7, 2004 6:19 PM
...and, not to correct, but I wrote give $500.00 not lend. There are a certain number of people in life who, if truly on hard times, have had or might have my financial support.
Craig (HB-Craig) - February 7, 2004 7:46 PM
WOW..a thought provoking series of comments. Nils, I am in agreement with you on lending money to friends. I won't do it. I will however give friends money if the need is serious and I have it to give. Giving, removes the danger of stressing the friendship over money.
I also think there are degrees of friendship. While the phrase 'best friends' is trite and over used, I absolutely treasure those individuals that have that place in my heart. They are the ones that you absolutely know have your best interests at heart, you trust them with anything and everything and the trust is returned. My best friends will say things to me that I don't want to hear - but need to hear nevertheless. They are not bothered by convenience or concerns about perceptions - they act from the heart. They are rare and they are a treasure. I can't conceive of anyone having that place in my life if we have not shared (personally) experiences. In that way I seem to agree with Al.
I have been fortunate in that I have a few best friends. They are people I could call right now and say "I need you" and all I would hear is where are you and they would be on the way. Some are very distant from Paradise and it would not make any difference.
I can think of 6 people that I grew up with who I consider best friends. I can think of two men who are part of my Canadian life that I consider best friends. My son and daughter are not only family but also best friends.
I have many friends. Not friends that I would donate a kidney to, but dear friends nevertheless. People who I enjoy and respect immensely and who will perhaps one day become 'best friends'. I suspect (hope) this will happen, but shared experiences, for me, seems to be am important part of friendship.
Nils Ling - February 7, 2004 10:13 PM
Ohh .. now THAT is a definition of a friend: to whom, if they needed it, would you willingly donate an organ? I don't lend organs to friends ... but would I give one?
(And sorry, Alan, for misreading the lend/give line - I try not to let facts interfere with my opinions)
Alan, your thought that you need the added dmension of "real life" to round out a friendship just doesn't hold *for me*. One of my dear friends, whom I have never met in person, has been experiencing angst over "boy troubles". I've been there for her as surely as if I were patting her shoulder and wondering if the product of all her sniffling was going to stain the shoulder on my shirt.
I guess "friend" is as personal a term as we can use. We all define it differently. I've forgiven friends who have wronged me horribly, simply because their years of service as friends has earned them some wiggle room. "That person is not your friend," says my wife. But she's wrong.
*I* decide who my friends are, online and off.
Alan - February 7, 2004 10:56 PM
I have no problem with that Nils. Probably the difference in definition has a lot to do with how we like to be treated ourselves - what and how it is that is important for me to receive in a friendship is what and how I like to give.<p>That being the case there are a few correspondents I would like to meet and some I may sometime in 2004. Of the less likely to meet if only because I have no travel plans, I think a Saturday with the authors of Ale Fan, Occupied Country and Timesnewroman at a pleasant neutral football ground and down the pub after (I am thinking St. James Park, Newcastle and Newkie Broon thereafter) would be time very well spent.
Alan - February 8, 2004 10:26 PM
I hadn't notices Doc Searls had referenced a failure of orkut to include gradations of acquaintance the day before I started this thread but he has useful content on that point.
Alan - March 1, 2004 5:01 PM
Joey, the Accordian Guy, has a great post on the uselessness of Orkut. I am off to coin the word "Strangester".