Tuesday's Mental Musings

The other day I realized I had over 79 contacts on facebook, 43 represent an extremely small portion of my family and the other 36 are real time friends and work associates that have spilled over into this friendship area of my life.I acknowledge the fact that without this medium I would never have the opportunity to stay in touch with this number of people and doing so is a real responsibility. I am being extremely diligent about keeping these zones free of people who just collect others to fill their friends list with pictures and names of people who can and will be disgarded or forgotten when the next new shiney person comes along.

Unfortunately seeing faces on a daily basis often allows a friendship to become more intimate faster than it might be in real space and time where schedules, locations and other responsibilities take priority over say "staying in touch with your 2nd cousin removed on your mother's side" and because of this collection is so easy. I often feel overwhelmed by the fact that I have acrewed the list I have and I can't even imagine keeping track of 100s of contacts because as social as I can be I do not offer my friendship lightly. 

I have never had the need to have a friends list of 100s to affirm that I am a likeable person, but this medium seems to allow one to have 100s of friends. When someone offers me their friendship in true sincerity I always feel honored and try to return in kind. I want to be able to communicate in a respectful and sincere way with those who honor me with their friendship and time. This is not to say that I want each of my contacts to be my "bestest" friend or that I can not exchange quips and jokes with strangers but I do like to invest in sincere intellectual and emotional affection with those who I call friends. I am also very aware of the fact that all friendships are based on the respectful perimeters set by the parties involved and it is up to me or the other party to accept or reject the friendship if it isn't what is wanted. Sometimes the friendship stays where it is or withers and dies, which is fine as long it we both agree that it is. Sometimes, with time, it grows and becomes better on all levels because of the 3 dimensionality of our connection.

The funny thing is after thinking and writing about this I went to my facebook list and tried to edit down the contacts but to be honest whether it's daily, weekly or monthly I connect with everyone who is on the list in a way that I believe is satisfactory to us all, at least I haven't heard any complaints.....