In the Company of Women
How many friends do you have?
I ask, because today at work, my room-mate told me she had more than 100 friends on Facebook. Now, I don't do Facebook, but I know enough about it to understand that it can be a bit random, like blogging. So I assumed that these were people who shared a mutual interest in the Star Wars films or the like. But no, these are more than 100 actual, real, friends, who just happen to be on Facebook.
I don't think I even know 100 people.
We talked about friends. And, as I've mentioned here before, we are very, very different people. I like a cosy one-to-one, she likes a big gang of folks at the same time. But it still came as a surprise to learn that she has around 25 people she could call on at 4am in a crisis.
I have four 4am friends. And I think myself very lucky.
I consider myself even more fortunate to have a wide network of people I can ring for a drink or a film, or email to set up lunch or a wee saunter round the shops. I have friends who I've not seen in months, but can meet and it's like we were together yesterday. I have friends who live here, and friends who don't. I have friends who I mainly communicate with via email, and friends who I write actual, honest to goodness letters to. I have friends from university, friends of friends, and many friends I've picked up through my various jobs. I have one friend who I've known since I was 13. And then there are friends I've never met, who've come into my life through this blog, and perhaps never will.
You know who you are.
Like I say, I consider myself fortunate all round. But there are only a small number of people I'd feel happy to call on in my hour of need. I always thought this was enough. I always thought this was normal. But now I wonder.
So, as always, with my room-mate, I feel utterly, woefully inadequate. Yes, yes, I know I'm just jealous. And I know I'm horrible.
I am so looking forward to being on holiday. Meanwhile, I'll return to my original question. How many friends do you have?
In other news, and in case you're wondering, I wasn't selected for jury service on Monday. But I do have to go back tomorrow, just in case. I will be bringing my book.
In the Company of Women - The Long Blondes
Labels: Feeling inadequate, Friends, Jury service, Work
posted by Cat @ Tuesday, July 01, 2008
25 Comments:
Well you know me and the friendship posts… I have 1 friend I can sometimes rely on. Although sometimes I am not sure and I think our friendship is withering a little these days!
I have an old penpal who I’ve written to since I was about 15 years old. We’ve been firm friends for years now and whilst she’s in her 40’s I kind of look upon her as a bigger sister, it’s my plan next year to visit her as a surprise she works at Peterborough Cathedral!
As for Facebook, I have 50 friends on there, although most of them are old school friends who just seem to link up which I don’t mind, but I am not keen on delving into my present with them when I have not seen them in yonks! Some on Facebook I do chat to especially those I have grown up with you know nursery, primary school etc…
Email friends, plenty, some I class as best friends I have made through the web others just people I chat to now and again!
What I miss though is a close friendship with someone who knows me well and someone I can chat to if I need to, I don’t feel I can do that with friend number 1 mentioned above!
Still life goes on…
Facebook is good really. Only those friends you allow are accepted to see your profile so you have control so to speak. You can share photos, all sorts of things, I love a game on there called Knighthood....there is a lot of variety and ever so slightly addictive....I currently have 21 friends on there (most of them are work colleagues!).
I too have two friends that I have kept in touch with - since we were all 9. They were my bridesmaids and we are now all 40. One lives not that far away, the other up in Scotland. I see neither of them that often but I am going to see my Scottish friend in September. I am coming to Edinburgh!
Susan
perhaps 5 friends who know me well, that i would call on in dire emergency. dozens of friendly acquaintances, including work and professional people that i actually like!
i´m in the midst of the worlds strangest blog-pal meetup. very sad circumstance... like you, i count myself very lucky to have those 5...
"Friends" is a loose term, I find. How many "friends" would I call in the middle of the night in a crisis? None. That dubious honour would be reserved for family.
It's nice to have friends, but I find these days that they matter less in self esteem terms. I find I don't need to see heaps of friends to make myself feel loved and I had to check over to facebook to see how many "Facebook friends" I had...the count is 68 but really there's only about ten/twleve folk on there that I see regularly, the rest are old friends, old workmates, folk I know/have known but don't really hang out with anymore.
Your workmate sounds needy.
.....if she has 25 friends she would call at 4 in the morning she is either lying or a pain in the arse, and if i were on her facebook page i would have my phone on silent.
Bwahaha! (To Katy's comment, not you)
That I could call at 4am? Probly just the one. That's what family is for.
I'm going to have to do that post. Soon.
I don't believe in the 25 friends she can call at 4am. Bah.
Some of the people I know on Facebook have hundreds of "friends" but as far as I can gather the actual number they interact with meaningfully tends to be a fraction of that. Throwing a sheep occasionally does not fall into my definition of meaningful :D.
Facebook is essentially about the number of people you've met in the world and had a relationship with for more than 5 minutes.
I have 288 Facebook friends. And I still get lonely sometimes. Sometimes more than just sometimes.
Facebook is no indication of anything ever. It's all bullshit, frankly. They don't call it Fakebook for nothing.
If anything, it can be detrimental, as it places everyone on the same level. So some random person I've met for 5 minutes gets the same footing as someone I've known 20 years. I wish I could delete myself from the whole sorry charade, but I don't have the guts.
Ah, the demon facebook. I have something like 250 facebook friends. But many of those are acquaintances - people I know, sure, and talk to, but certainly not people I'd call at 4am. My 4am list would include my sisters and would probably be about 5 people too! Sometimes it's lonelier to know lots of people, but not really know them (if that makes any sense)...
Your room mate sounds like she needs to be seen as very popular. A bit competitive, isn't she? Or at least that's how she comes across. I guess it all depends on your definition of "friend" really. Someone you know and pass the time of day with at work probably isn't a friend, just an acquaintance.
I tried Facebook but found it really boring - I prefer to talk to people face to face.
Hi Cat. I have about 50 friends I could ring at 4am. Only 49 of them would still be my friends after that call though! LOL.
Personally I invest a lot in friendship and with a busy lifestyle and limited time I think you can have quality or quantity. xx
Your roomate is a Hammerhead. Don't listen to her stupid prattle. Your the real one here Cat, not her. And as far as coming into your life, Well, here's hoping. Have a great holiday
I have to agree with the general populus, FB means jack all. I've got 251 on there, and recently went on a blitz removing the barely connected. I'd say I've got 3 or 4 in the 4am category, and maybe 20 people I'd consider good friends who I interact with every few weeks minimum?
In the end of the day Cat, she sounds very needy, and I like her less and less everytime she's mentioned on the blog. Don't compare yourself to her. You're better.
Personally, I don't have *any* real life friends these days and that has been the case for the last 8 years or so.
For the most part, it hasn't bothered me, but these days, I have been hating the feeling of such intense loneliness.
Having said that, I do have half a dozen *excellent* Internet friends. A couple of which I would class as best friends :-D
It would be lovely to have a *real* friend closer to home though. Someone that I could meet-up with every now and again, or just call up every now and then for a good ol' gossip!
Things like Facebook are all very well for networking, but I can't possibly see how one would class hundreds of people as friends. How could you possibly keep up with them ALL?
Personally, I go for quality, and NOT quantity! LOL
Lins x
Oh dear, I only have 5 friends on my facebook - now I feel really sad!
I'm with the majority on here, I have 2 friends I could call at 4am in an emergency but in reality it would be family.
I think your room-mate is prone to a 'little' exaggeration, probably low self-esteem under all that 'how wonderful am I' attitude!
Nicky
Trust me, if you wanted to have 100 friends on Facebook, you easily could. People you spoke to for five seconds will send you a friend request. The term "friend" is thrown around pretty loosely these days.
I have a good group of 4 a.m. friends, but unfortunately they're now scattered all over the country and most can only be reached by prohibitively long flights. In my home town, I really have one or two friends that I know would be there through anything. Fortunately, their fantastic enough that I've never needed anything more!
Replace word 'friends' with 'people ranging from actual friends, to ones I have met once, ones I have never and will never meet, to people I have never heard of but who seem to know someone who knows me'
I quite like Facebook, actually, and I think I have around 90 'friends'a small number of which I actually communicate with. I hardly think its a measure of popularity!
I have VERY few friends I could ring at 4.00am and I am not sure ANY of them would thank me for it.
Your friend just sounds weird and needy......you sound MUCH nicer!
Alison, I too have a penpal I've been writing to since high school. She actually came over and stayed with me - from the USA - while I was at university. I don't really class her as a friend, but it's always nice to hear from her.
Susan, I was a bit tempted to go for the friend making when we spoke about it, but I figure this blog is enough for me to be going on with.
Daisy, "friendly acquaintances" is a good term. I have loads of those too!
Misssy and Mr Farty, when I had the GHD burn incident at the beginning of the year, I didn't feel able to call my mum in case P picked up, which made me feel sad. I think friends are the new family.
Katy, I am not going on her Facebook page.
Mephitis, I am a bit lost with your sheep throwing...
Crucifer, that's what I always thought, but apparently that's not the case with my room-mate.
Del, that's a really interesting point - no heirarchy of friends proper within Facebook. And I think we all get lonely sometimes, it's just that people don't like to admit it.
London Girl, I completely agree - it's sometimes loneliest surrounded by people.
Yaleoush, I honestly don't think she's competitive, just super confident and with a very lovely life. And I am just jealous!
Out of a Bottle, I agree with that too. I'd rather have a smaller number of really close friends than a million people I kind of know.
Cody Bones, is that some kind of shark? Ha.
Boy, your situation pretty much mirrors my own. One of the reasons I asked this question was to see if I was in the minority. I'm glad I did. I feel better now.
Lindsay, your comment made me feel really sad. I hope you find what you're looking for.
Nicky, I don't think she'd even know the meaning of the phrase "low self esteem". And hey, you have five more Facebook friends than me!
J, again, it comes back to she and I being very different, I think. She chats to everyone and is extremely outgoing, whereas I am much more reserved. I'd imagine she'd make friends really easily, whereas I'm more of a slow burner and like to take more time to get to know people properly.
JustMe, thanks!
I find it hard to believe that anybody could possibly have 25 friends to call on in an emergency. Maybe what your room-mate (why did yo say room-mate? Have you gone all American on us?!) meant was that she knows 25 suckers who wouldn't know how to say no to her if she called in the middle of the night. Let's face it, if an acquaintance of mine called in the middle of the night to say "I've locked myself out my house/car. Can I stay at your place", I'd be bewildered that he/she asked, but I'd hardly be likely to say no if put in that situation. You'd come off as a right git if you did.
"Throwing a sheep" is one of the super-pokes or some such drivel that you can do to your so-called friends on FB. It's just sending a notification to them really, saying "such-and-such has thrown at sheep at you". Amusing as that may or may not be.
I do actually quite like it for keeping in touch with a couple of friends who live far away: it's an easy way to share photos and touch base, as well as having an email function. It reminds a bit of student days of when people used to leave notes on my door in halls :D. I also like the scrabble.
But a lot of the applications you can add seem to be a way of forwarding crappy chainmail type email jokes and videos.
SM, she's my room-mate at work - we share a room there. They're called work-rooms, and not offices in my place. God, if I had to live with her, I'd kill myself!
Weirdly, I found myself in exactly that position a couple of months ago when a girl I know and like, but definitely wouldn't class as a friend, called to ask if she could crash on my couch because she'd lost her keys. Of course, I said yes, but it was all a bit awkward.
Mephitis, aha. My room-mate mentioned doing things like sending someone a YouTube link or challenging them to a game of scrabble. I was a bit lost. If I wanted to send someone an amusing YouTube link, I'd send them an email - she told me the point was that all their friends could see it too. Maybe that's how she makes so many new friends? I suppose, for me, I am much more of a one-to-one person and am not even good in a virtual crowd!
If her friends are like herself then they may welcome random youtube links thrown at them. If they are like me when I get those forwarded mass emails (I am not fb person) then they will probably ignore as I do with mild irritation.
I do send youtube links ocassionally to specific individuals I think will like them. But this mass thing is just pointless 'prattle' as codybones says. But then I am a slow burner too, and happy with it.
Yeah, I know people like that an echoing other commentors here, they tend to be 'people collectors'. They request to add me as a friend and then, once added, barely contact me except for automated messages that get sent out whenever they do a quiz. They just want to get that number of friends in their profile as high as possible so they can believe (and make others believe) they're really popular and feel jealous of them. In reality I doubt they have close dealings with many of those people.
Just think about it - if you're having to juggle your time between so many people, it's not really possible to have very deep or meaningful friendships with any of them, is it? I know a guy just like that - he knows hundreds of people and for his birthday they all arranged a huge concert for him to which over 200 people came. But he comes round my place on his own to sit and talk, in his words "because I just don't have anyone I can talk to, besides you". Funny that, eh? I wouldn't go to him if I needed friendship type stuff because frankly, he's not exactly accessible. He's so busy trying to give ten minutes of each day to everyone he knows that he just hasn't got time for anyone, for just sitting and chilling and relaxing and stuff. The most anyone can get from him is an hour or so time slot between other things, and the phone rings constantly so you can't get any decent conversation.
Don't be jealous of those sorts of people Cat. It's way better IMO to have 5 real friends than 100 acquaintances.
Anon, I don't think there's anything wrong with being a slow burner. Join my club!
SP, I spoke to RH about this at the weekend and he told me a story about a bloke he knows who has loads and loads of acquaintances and is the life and soul of every party, yet would be struggling to find someone close enough to be a best man if he got married. I think that puts it into perspective a bit, no?
And I do have loads of acquaintances. But not so many of them that I'd class as real friends, more just people I know and am happy to go for a drink with kind of thing.
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