Re: Friends/sysdharma (zaibatsu), 10/30/2019 ------------------------------------------------------------ User sysdharma recently wrote about making new friends after moving abroad[1]. I had been thinking on this subject before reading that post, and have meant to respond. No time like the present. My friends have generally come from a few pools of associations: work (before I worked at home), church, school (when I was in school), and family (including extended family). I'll add pubnix to that list, in more recent years, due to the amount of time I spend here, and the quality of conversation that I encounter; I consider you all friends. That makes me think that I may need to define "friend" at this point. Webster says that a friend(1) is "one attached to another by affection or esteem." That's pretty loose, but reasonable. I've encountered far more sentimental definitions, but I'm not sure I appreciate them, because they introduce unnecessary requirements and restrictions on the word. For example, if a well-meaning individual says "a friend is someone who is always there for you", then I'm obligated to disagree, because I'm incapable of always being there for my friends, but I love them all the same. If a deeply emotional person notes that "a true friend will always respect you and let you be yourself" then my sensibilities would be piqued, because I've benefited from friends telling me to change, pointing out my flaws (purposefully or not), and generally smacking me around a bit when I'm out of line (which is often). With Webster's friend(1), I feel that I can safely call my affectionate and/or esteemed acquaintances, whether in the flesh or digital, "friends". To be honest, I detest the need to distinguish between physical/digital when it comes to friendship (after all, they are just different forms of communication between actual humans), but there is one distinction that I feel I must make: the ease with which one makes and keeps friends in digital space vs. the energy required to maintain friendship in physical space. My wife once observed that most friends generally exist in a radius of proximity. In her experience, the radius was about a 15-20 minute driving time. Within that space, friendship was easy, outside that space it became much more difficult. Obviously, this is because those friends have expectations of physical interaction (most of them, anyway). These are people that we meet, enjoy, and meet again, with our bodies. Digital friends, on the other hand, accept that there may be a world (or more, in the future) of space between you. They understand that you're not physically present, and they don't require you to be. They appreciate what you have to offer mind-to-mind, spirit-to-spirit, whatever-to-whatever, directly. And now I'm starting to introduce requirements as to what a friend is! But, it's only to distinguish between physical and digital... Perhaps sysdharma means mostly that it's hard to make new friends in physical space. I have to agree (with my guess at what sysdharma means). My experience with friends in physical space has been less than perfect. I have my wife, who is an amazing friend of the finest variety. I have my brothers, who I share a unique and unbreakable bond with, in spite of our differences. I have a "best friend" from my youth, who I refuse to let go no matter how far he is from me, or how long it's been since we talked/emailed. These are my primary group of fellow travelers. These are my friends, no matter what. Then I have the rest of my friends in physical space. These come from the pools mentioned above. They're people I meet by chance, and enjoy, and who (presumably) enjoy me as well. Sometimes I encounter people that I enjoy who are too busy to be a friend (in the invented-requirements sense). Sometimes I encounter a friend and we have amazing experiences together; but then I move, and my wife's proximity rule comes into play on their part, and they don't really email me back, don't really want to connect. That's a little crushing, but they are only human after all. Life is pulling at me, otherwise I'd ramble more (you can thank life!). To sysdharm, if he's reading, I'd say this: embrace your digital friends, who are real, and do what you can with the people directly around you as well. Ask some of us for our address, or send us yours, and see what our handwriting is like. Accept that in physical space, friendship is quite different, and more work. Maybe you already know all this. Know one more thing, and that is you have friends here on gopher that enjoy reading your thoughts, and are glad you're here with us in this small, fleeting way. [1] gopher://sdf.org:70/1/users/sysdharma/phlog/./2019.10.15