Lyndon (Pink) Lincoln J. sent me a request.....when I will never know....I don't get emails anymore.....to be my friend since connections were no longer an option.
I thought...well....is that cool. I think Lyndon is the bomb diggity so I am right there with being his friend.
And then I thought......what exactly does he mean? And I investigated. NOW y'all might be hip to the groove....but this was a new finding to me.
Now friends are great.....don't get me wrong. But I kinda want to have some kind of relationship with a person before I call them 'a friend'. Now Lyndon....he is good friend material....I like his stuff. I can dig it. I would be his friend if I met him in real life.
But I don't want to be friends with everybody. God, that sounds awful doesn't it. What I mean is....if I am your friend.....that requires sincere commitment. Or if I am friends with everybody.....does it lessen my degree of friendship with those with whom I am truly close and correspond ? Are we turning the word 'friend' into a word like 'love'.
example:
I love you.
I love ice cream.
I love it when you do THAT.
Don't you just love it when.....
See? How generic. And now we are about to turn another realllly good and sincere word into a word that has lost its meaning....kinda like love.
My other thought is this. Before I could say, oh yes....I read this reallllly great article today by one of my 'connections'.....or one of my 'connections' left this funny comment. Now replace te word 'connection' with 'friend'. Sounds good. Sounds innocuous. Until someone asks, oh yeah? Where is your 'friend'. Your 'friend' lives in Easterbivia? Nextonuthin, FL? Here, there and Everywhere?.....then they shake their head at you. Your joy turns to embarassment. And you have that ugly pathetic feeling....especially when you realize that you have met far less than 96.4 percent of your 'friends' in real life. It is sketchy.
PLUS. I think having connections is way cooler. You can say things like.....I made this cool 'connection' with Joy today. (be sure to leave off all initials and defining characteristics. Initials give it all away.....defining characteristics that you truly adore...like say....cranky pants.....may frighten your real life friends who cannot begin to comprehend the joy that seeing Joy's cranky pants everyday give you......and as a side note.....I want badly to be Joy's friend.)
Plus....you can say......I have got connections. And it is kinda like 'having the network' like on a Verizon commercial. Maybe not reality....but it is that Verizon-y feel that we are going for here.
So Gather Gods that be........(excluding Charles and Brad......my connections and my very dear friends) please consider my commentary and return us to our connective beginnings. So that we may choose to make connections and upgrade our dearest connections to the level of friends.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 43
Makes sense William.....I shall reciprocate as we speak. I believe that you are on my list o' friends. :D
All. The. Freakin'. TIME.
I used to accept any connection request that came down the pike. Now, I check the profile & the articles from the requester. And this weekend, I'm going to clean out my "friends" list so that it adequately reflects that term.
But seriously, I was thinking that very thing. And I hate the thought of offending people.....but what is more offensive? An insincere friend or a disconnect....errr...disfriending?
It is all so confusing.
I got ya' Ghostly Ghoul. I mean truly. I love my connections. I hope that one day they will be friends....but jeez. I feel like I am being shoved into a relationship by my mama. You *know* how these things turn out.
Do I comment your articles?
If you can answer yes, then you're gold.
That's my new yardstick.
Oh, and you can't be a duplicitous little ass, either.
Heather, you're one of my favorite pickles.
Maybe I'll make a friends category for my pickles.
BOB is your friend.
But you might not even really *know* Bob. You were being nice because he was new. And now you realize that 'Bob' loves his cat. No I mean.....LOVES his cat. And NOW he is YOUR friend. Tawdry. Makes me realllllly think about connecting errr. befriending new people until I am sure about his ....ways.
Know what I mean????
siiiiigh
Doing the friend whatever thing through the weekend.
On my way home....I was talking to another connection who became a friend. We agreed it is becoming very myspace-y. And I am here because I don't love myspace. I was happy here. But it gets less and less personal.
I came here because I wanted to learn to write. I am not the best writer...but nor am I the worst. I can honestly say that I feel that I have become better at writing. I did not choose to continue my blog because it was easier to come here and put it up without hassle. And it is still relatively easy to do.....but now you want me to commit to people I don't know. I may want to know them later...but shouldn't that be my choice?
I like to Gather my friends as *I* may.
I suppose this is a bad analogy but ....just because you sleep with someone does not mean you will get married. But yet is it a bad analogy? When you put your heart into your articles.....it is kind of like getting nude. But now....Gather is making it like we are getting naked. Sensuality vs. Sex. Nude vs. Nakedness. There is a difference. One reveals itself on mutual terms.....the other is basically word porn.
I guess I might be making a bigger deal about this than I should be......but I guess what I am saying is that this is really a big deal for me. My gathering experience has been cheapened. It has me considering other blogs. Sure I might put advertisements on my personal blog for money....but hey that is on MY terms. Right now I feel so cheap. I don't know.....it has me considering drinking the koolaid and joining Joanne Huspek, Mars Cappaletti, and other greats who have gone to greener pastures.....or worse. Maybe just stop writing all together. :(
Makes me sad.
Ok.....maybe I should go drink the prozac laced koolaid now. :P
The way I see it is from the song "Hopping Toad Frog" by J. T. "Funny Paper" Smith
I ain't got no friends
By myself I'm always on the road.
Now you talk you like my hoppin
Won't you keep me for your little old toad.
Same goes here on Gather. I have many connections...er, friends...but I wouldn't really consider them "true" friends. You just gotta go with the flow, I guess!
I support this totally...Connect first...
Z'