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(Another in the continuing series of "hrj re-commits to providing substantive content in her LJ".)
Being the person I am, I sometimes (often?) consider the question of why my patterns of social interaction manifest in the way they do. Whether there are ways I can modify them to achieve things that I want to achieve. Whether some of the issues I see as flaws may instead be features. And after all that pondering, here are some of the things I think I've learned about myself. A "field guide to the hrj", as it were. (Discussion is welcome, but anything that starts with "Well, why don't you just ..." should be given serious thought first.)
I've often been fascinated by the sort of person who can walk into an event (party, convention, etc.) and become close friends with one or more people that they'd never met before by the end of it. I honestly don't understand how that works. I can meet someone in that type of context but I've never managed to achieve any sort of lasting connection. When I look at the friendships I've made (and I'm making a distinction here between friends and acquaintances) they have pretty much all involved an extended period of regular interactions for some separate purpose. For me, an essential part of making friends seems to be that building up of a shared experience. There have certainly been plenty of people I've met that I've wanted to become friends with on the basis of a brief interaction. But without the context of that initial habitual interaction, it doesn't end up happening, no matter how much I want it and no matter what I try. In Real Life this constrains my potential pool of friends a fair amount. There have been people that I had known or met quite some time previous to the point when we were thrown together sufficiently often to become friends. And I don't know of anything that could have sped up the process. It also means that sometimes I've become friends with someone with whom I have very little in common, simply by virtue of being thrown together regularly. (My 'best friend' in high school was a girl who happened to bike the same extended route to school as I did at the same time. Alas, the friendship didn't long survive graduation. I wrote her regular letters during the next year but received none in return and eventually gave up. And yet, at the time, I considered her my best friend.)
The Internet has thrown an interesting twist into this feature. I sometimes wonder how different my life would have been if I'd grown up with the net. The net has provided a new type of context where I can have regular, extended "parallel play" of the sort I seem to need to make friends. It's not quite the same, and the opportunities for what one can do with that friendship are narrower. But it does open up the pool a bit. There are a handful of people I've gotten to know through extensive regular conversations in newsgroups or mailing lists where we seen to have achieved the friendship threshold.
Another feature that appears to be essential for me is that a sufficient percentage of the "parallel play" stage is one-on-one. In groups, at parties, as part of a crowd, I more or less fade into invisibility. I could be in the same room as someone every day for a year -- even talk to them regularly -- and if all of that time involved the presence of more than a couple other people, I'm unlikely to have made friends by the end of it. This often mystifies people. "But I see you hanging out with Group X all the time! What do you mean they aren't your friends?" If I'm hanging out with a group, but I've never made specific individual connections, it doesn't morph into friendship for me. I think part of it is the sense that, in a context like that, I'm an interchangeable cog in a larger machine. And then there's the crowds-and-noise factor. Crowds and noise are hard work for me, and hanging out in groups tends to involve crowds and noise, by definition. So group socializing may sometimes be a useful investment towards other options, but it carries no direct social payoff for me: I'm working hard and not getting much back either in terms of immediate enjoyment or relationship development. Or, in other terms, I don't do 'entourage' for fun (although I may do it for other purposes).
It's much the same reason I don't tend to become a classic 'fan' of the authors or artists I like. I'm already enjoying their output as a consumer, but I have no illusion that if I read their blog or join their club or attend their readings or autograph sessions that it will be an equal two-way relationship. I have a fairly solid rule that I don't "friend" people on the basis of being a fan of their work unless we've actually met in person and I have some expectation that they would remember who I am. If I have a positive response to the ideas and imagery and whatnot in someone's work, it may well give me the desire to get to know that person better, but just as with any sort of passing encounter, it rarely gives me a basis for establishing an ongoing interaction that might develop into a friendship. And, quite frankly, I'm not that interested in seriously asymmetric social relationships. If I'm investing time and emotional energy into a social relationship with someone, I want the hope of the sort of social relationship that gives me back the things that feed me. And what feeds me is the sense that the other person knows and sees and appreciates me for the specific, individual person that I am. Not as an interchangeable fan. Not as a nameless spear-carrier in the production of their life. Not as a fictional character in their own story that they've pasted my face on for convenience. But as me.
And why do I think I deserve to receive that type of friendship from others? Because if someone does stick it out to become my friend, that's the level of commitment I give to them. The "help move bodies" level. The 3am phone call level. It's a perilous thing, friendship.
Being the person I am, I sometimes (often?) consider the question of why my patterns of social interaction manifest in the way they do. Whether there are ways I can modify them to achieve things that I want to achieve. Whether some of the issues I see as flaws may instead be features. And after all that pondering, here are some of the things I think I've learned about myself. A "field guide to the hrj", as it were. (Discussion is welcome, but anything that starts with "Well, why don't you just ..." should be given serious thought first.)
I've often been fascinated by the sort of person who can walk into an event (party, convention, etc.) and become close friends with one or more people that they'd never met before by the end of it. I honestly don't understand how that works. I can meet someone in that type of context but I've never managed to achieve any sort of lasting connection. When I look at the friendships I've made (and I'm making a distinction here between friends and acquaintances) they have pretty much all involved an extended period of regular interactions for some separate purpose. For me, an essential part of making friends seems to be that building up of a shared experience. There have certainly been plenty of people I've met that I've wanted to become friends with on the basis of a brief interaction. But without the context of that initial habitual interaction, it doesn't end up happening, no matter how much I want it and no matter what I try. In Real Life this constrains my potential pool of friends a fair amount. There have been people that I had known or met quite some time previous to the point when we were thrown together sufficiently often to become friends. And I don't know of anything that could have sped up the process. It also means that sometimes I've become friends with someone with whom I have very little in common, simply by virtue of being thrown together regularly. (My 'best friend' in high school was a girl who happened to bike the same extended route to school as I did at the same time. Alas, the friendship didn't long survive graduation. I wrote her regular letters during the next year but received none in return and eventually gave up. And yet, at the time, I considered her my best friend.)
The Internet has thrown an interesting twist into this feature. I sometimes wonder how different my life would have been if I'd grown up with the net. The net has provided a new type of context where I can have regular, extended "parallel play" of the sort I seem to need to make friends. It's not quite the same, and the opportunities for what one can do with that friendship are narrower. But it does open up the pool a bit. There are a handful of people I've gotten to know through extensive regular conversations in newsgroups or mailing lists where we seen to have achieved the friendship threshold.
Another feature that appears to be essential for me is that a sufficient percentage of the "parallel play" stage is one-on-one. In groups, at parties, as part of a crowd, I more or less fade into invisibility. I could be in the same room as someone every day for a year -- even talk to them regularly -- and if all of that time involved the presence of more than a couple other people, I'm unlikely to have made friends by the end of it. This often mystifies people. "But I see you hanging out with Group X all the time! What do you mean they aren't your friends?" If I'm hanging out with a group, but I've never made specific individual connections, it doesn't morph into friendship for me. I think part of it is the sense that, in a context like that, I'm an interchangeable cog in a larger machine. And then there's the crowds-and-noise factor. Crowds and noise are hard work for me, and hanging out in groups tends to involve crowds and noise, by definition. So group socializing may sometimes be a useful investment towards other options, but it carries no direct social payoff for me: I'm working hard and not getting much back either in terms of immediate enjoyment or relationship development. Or, in other terms, I don't do 'entourage' for fun (although I may do it for other purposes).
It's much the same reason I don't tend to become a classic 'fan' of the authors or artists I like. I'm already enjoying their output as a consumer, but I have no illusion that if I read their blog or join their club or attend their readings or autograph sessions that it will be an equal two-way relationship. I have a fairly solid rule that I don't "friend" people on the basis of being a fan of their work unless we've actually met in person and I have some expectation that they would remember who I am. If I have a positive response to the ideas and imagery and whatnot in someone's work, it may well give me the desire to get to know that person better, but just as with any sort of passing encounter, it rarely gives me a basis for establishing an ongoing interaction that might develop into a friendship. And, quite frankly, I'm not that interested in seriously asymmetric social relationships. If I'm investing time and emotional energy into a social relationship with someone, I want the hope of the sort of social relationship that gives me back the things that feed me. And what feeds me is the sense that the other person knows and sees and appreciates me for the specific, individual person that I am. Not as an interchangeable fan. Not as a nameless spear-carrier in the production of their life. Not as a fictional character in their own story that they've pasted my face on for convenience. But as me.
And why do I think I deserve to receive that type of friendship from others? Because if someone does stick it out to become my friend, that's the level of commitment I give to them. The "help move bodies" level. The 3am phone call level. It's a perilous thing, friendship.
