I loved eavesdropping on my niece and her friend. I
imagine it’s how anthropologists feel when they listen in on strange tribes. Sixteen-year-old
girls are a fascinating species.
“You know who became a friend of mine?” my niece’s
friend said, kind of excited. It seemed a mutual acquaintance befriended her on Facebook.
What struck me was how casually she was referring
to someone she had just met online. ‘Hold on a second, girls,’ I
thought to myself, not to give away my stealth, ‘she’s not a friend.’ Maybe I’m
making a big deal of this, but if we keep using the term “friend” like
that, will we begin to believe that that’s what a friend is?
What's a friend? A friend shares one’s pleasure in One Direction as
well as one’s pain when Casey, your dog, dies. A friend considers sensitivity
about what you’re wearing to be a good trait, even when you don’t have the
latest pair of Uggs; she considers bullying to be a bad trait; and generally
the same kind of people to be friends and the same kind of people to be jerks.
A friend is someone who has stood by you or by those you cherish. A friend
respects your stuff and doesn’t mooch off your friends. A friend is a friend of
your friends and wants the same people to be your friends. A friend considers
your feelings and knows how disastrous it would be to cry in the middle of the
hallway outside of chemistry class. A friend is someone with whom it can be fun to
hang out in your bedroom for a whole afternoon. A friend is pretty easy-going
and not too critical of your faults and not always looking for an argument the
way your brother does. A friend praises one’s good features, especially those
features that one thinks aren’t so evident. A friend is there for you when it
isn’t convenient for her, even when she’s with a group of kids and one of the
guys there is gorgeous. A friend knows that texting you is too impersonal for certain
gossip. Even though we’re talking about
girls and a lot of girls tend to bear grudges, a friend doesn’t bear grudges for too
long, nor keeps count of your screw-ups. A friend is someone who is important,
in some way seriously disposed towards you, seriously connected with things
about which you most wish to be admired. A friend is keen for the same things
in which you can do together, even when those things are a little weird for girls,
like going to hockey games to see skaters slam against the wall and punch each
other like crazy people. A friend is
someone who isn’t ashamed by certain things that affect your reputation. A
friend is
someone who loves the present as well as the absent friend. A friend does not
desert you. A friend does not put on adult airs with you. A friend encourages you.
In other words, a friend has to be all those things that don’t really come
instantly with a click.
I think we
should all protest Facebook and get Mark Zuckerberg to change
“friend” to “contact.” Or “chum.” Or something. There’s no way that all those
people even like Mr. Zuckerberg. Or that all our “friends” are friends.
I
love the quote by Neitzche, “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that
makes unhappy marriages.” It implies that to be a friend takes work, just as
marriages do. It says that words are symbols and some symbols suggest more
possibilities than others – and won't we limit our chances of finding true
relationships, if the symbols don’t stand for as much as they used to?
Even in advertising, while we shouldn't settle for Facebook friendship, or even a thumbs up, we shouldn't expect quite the real thing, either.
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