Friends. The New Status.

When I was young, I looked enviously upon my sister's group of girlfriends. They were a tight group of five with very different personalities and talents. I suspect what bonded them was an ability to laugh at themselves as well as a mutual appreciation for what each brought to this unique constellation. They rallied like mama bears when one of the pack had a broken heart, they shared details of all the requisite "firsts", and, not surprisingly, they are still the closest of friends. Despite geographic distance, they've embraced each other through bachelorette parties, divorces, children, lack of children, job dilemmas, and life successes. Somehow, even at a very young age, I knew that this closeness of friendship was something special to behold.

I, on the other hand, tended to have friends in many different groups. I had cheerleader friends, stoner friends, goth friends, nerdy friends, and jock friends. Unfortunately these friends never convened under one roof, so I floated between my eclectic circle, spending a little time with each, nurturing deep acquaintences as opposed to everlasting friendships. I cannot remember ever having had an enduring "best friend", and to this day, even with many wonderful people in my life, this level of friendship still eludes me.

Which brings me to the point of all this.

I am the first to say that I love social networking, because I am a lazy communicator. I am admittedly quite bad at keeping in touch. (If you are reading this blog, you know me well enough to confirm this.) Sites like LinkedIn and Facebook allow me to easily keep track of people I care about and visa versa. But lately I have been seeing people with, very literally, THOUSANDS of friends. Really? Friends? I currently have 665 people in my Outlook Contacts and I can probably delete about 95% of them because they are distant and outdated contacts from three jobs ago. (That reminds me, I need to do that.) So if I have 665 people in my contacts, and only about 65 of them are "valid", how is it that some people have thousands of supposedly valid "friends"?

If it used to be aspirational to have a handful of eternal friendships in your life, have we (d)-evolved as a society to the point where a competitive volume of 'contacts' is the New Black? Is it now how many you know (or more importantly, know you) that makes you feel on top of your game? Do people click on the "Add As Friend" button, do the arm pump, and make the 'cha-ching' sound?

This seems to be an order of magnitude beyond having a broad collection of good acquaintences, as my life has been, and is about forming a cadre of strangers linked by some random thread. I believe in my heart that having a close-knit posse, like my sister has, must be infinitely more fulfilling than a mere group of solid acquaintences. So the Facebook Trajectory of Friendship would suggest that, beyond the ill-placed pride of a thousand connections, there can really be no true emotional fulfillment at all. So then why is this happening?

Perhaps in the flailing economy, the deflation of confidence and egos, and the lack-luster of luxury items, we are reverting to non-monetary means of showing our status (to others and to ourselves). We feel that our large network somehow makes us an "influencer". We fanticize that all of these people on our long list of Connections log on daily just to see what we are doing or thinking right at this very moment. Yes, we are indeed that important. That interesting. Meanwhile, back in the real world, half the people on our list may not even remember who we are despite that fabulous headshot (or cool party shot) that is posted by our name and profile.

When I was in Russia in the early 90's, I spent most of my time sitting around the kitchen table with people, drinking tea and talking. Sometimes there were just two of us, sometimes eight, squeezed in around the warm pot of water. We talked about everything. I remember thinking about how, when economies are bad and people are struggling, there is a coming together, a certain solidarity, an increased intimacy in the conversation, and a deeper bond that forms among people. So my hope is that what I see on the social networking sites is just a fad of fun distraction from real life, and is not a social trend pointing to the devaluation of true friendship. Russia is looking pretty good right now.

I may be almost 40, but I haven't given up hope that I will someday find my close tribe.