Once, I Called You Friend...

Well, another "Love Our Lurkers" Day has come and gone thanks in very large part to the efforts of Bonnie at My Bottom Smarts. I don't know, as I write this, if there are any numbers to show how many of us participated, or how many comments were left around our circle, but I know from the small bit of the community that I touched that there was plenty of participation. And that's a good thing I think.

It has caused me to ponder the notion of friends and acquaintances and the whole idea of community in general. I do seem to come back to that on a pretty regular basis. Oh well.

The thing that seems to be generated in me by the kind of exchange that happens on LOL Day is a sense of my own lack of over-flowing friendliness. I end up feeling surly and unfriendly.

I / we receieved some marvelous, wonderfully kind and generous comments, and I was honored and humbled by the sentiments that were expressed. Many of those came from people who really were "lurkers." They clearly had been around, reading "unseen" for some length of time. I also went from place to place leaving comments -- although, to be honest, I made comments that were pretty perfunctory. I did the equivalent of "sending holiday greeting cards" to the people on my list. Because, most of the places where I left comments were not really places that I read. Truthfully, if I read your writing, I make comments on a pretty regular basis as things stir my consciousness (not all the time, but consistently). If there are never any comments from me on your site, then chances are that I don't read there -- even if I keep your link up here.

My circle of "intimates" is pretty small. I am not one to gather a vast flock of "girl-friends." I invest most of my energy and attention in two places -- first, here at home where my focus must be singular and intense, and secondly, with my students. Their learning, their comfort, their emotional and intellectual well-being is a huge priority of my days. I simply don't have the time or energy to read every word that gets written out here in the spanking-circle, although surely much of it is likely to be interesting and worthwhile.

Actually, I think I was already in this mode of deep contemplation on the notion of friendship because I had some pretty intense and challenging IM conversations just after the election with a woman who was a very early compatriot on one listserve where I spent time when I was first exploring domestic discipline. We probably called each other "friend" in those days. Then I went the way I did, and she and her husband took another path. We lost touch for a number of years.

A while back -- probably two years ago now, she came back into my life. I'm not sure exactly how that came to be, but we began chatting now and again. Except that I have found that chatting with her is generally not a particularly satisfying process. She is one of those people who seem to find a way to make all IM conversations revolve entirely around themselves. If my "friend" gets around to a cursory "How are you?" she is almost always perfectly satisfied to hear "I'm fine" before she continues her ramble about her kids and her dogs and her church and... It usually isn't too long before I'm weary and hoping to find a way to escape.

I've pretty much ended my contact with her. There are circumstances to that ending, but it doesn't matter. The fact is that it felt like a relationship that didn't offer me the sustenance that I needed if I were going to keep investing energy there.

In the end, it is illustrative of my feelings in the aftermath of LOL Day. Friendship is something that I cherish. I can be a good friend, but I am no good at being a casual friend. I invest in the people that I care about. I think about those people and I wonder about their lives and I read their stories with care and thought. I've never laid eyes on most of the people that I currently call friends, but I feel solidly connected to them just the same.

I went back to My Bottom Smarts, after it was all over, and took a quick look at the list of participants in this year's festivities. So many people that I have no awareness of at all; way more than I have time to get to know. I go down through that list and feel glad for the diversity and extent of this community, and I am clear that I haven't got the capacity to participate with even a fraction of that group of folks. I imagine that, if I could spend time with all of them, there might be friends hiding in that list. I just don't know who they might be, and I cannot see how I'd ever find the hours and hours it would take to get to know them.

I am feeling conflicted by this. I feel bad that I am not more sociable. But then I feel resentful for being pushed toward a sociableness that I don't feel or embrace. I've taken part in LOL Day for a couple of years now, and may again. I just need to get straight what I think it really is, and what it is not.

I guess that is just the state of my thinking at the present -- unsettled and uncertain.

swan