At the end of the day, no amount of Facebook, Skype or Twitter interaction can ever replace the value of spending time with another person. On a social networking platform, people get to hide behind a screen. Behind the smiley emoticon, you can't see their true facial expressions. You only get a superficial idea of who they are, or rather, who they want you to think they are.
This thought is really beginning to sink in my head right now.
While I was living in the US, I always tried to maintain some sort of connection with the friends and family that I've left behind here in Singapore. How naive of me to think that these relationships could really remain unchanged over time!
Fast forward eight years and here we are, heads filled with different ideas about life, walking in different directions with different kinds of people.
"Breaking up" with friends over big quarrels is always a sad and bitter affair. But one other painful and sad breakup that no one seems to notice is the one that occurs slowly over time. When two friends slowly stop spending time with each other because they just decided that they'd rather do different things.
Eventually, just a shell of that friendship remains.
On the outside, we're still "good friends". Best friends even, too, maybe... But we hardly know each other anymore. We wouldn't even know what to get each other for our birthdays because we don't know what our friend likes. We think we know, but we actually don't.
Sometimes I look at the older people that I know and observe their longtime friendships. A lot of them only recently caught up because they found each other on Facebook. They used to be really good friends, hung out everyday and stuff. Now they hardly know each other.
Somewhere along the way, they just gave up and started going their own way. Now they look back in a kind of bittersweet regret- where have the days gone by? My, how your kids have grown!
I watch all these things and I think to myself: I am standing on the edge. This is where it starts.... This is where you and I begin losing touch and falling out.
Goodbye my friends.
I guess we'll hang out someday in the far future when our kids are grown and we meet through some new social networking platform.
3 comments:
Nooooooo :(
This can easily be amended if two people are willing to spend time to get to know each other all over again! :)
i agree with tetyana! We have the bond of Christ to keep us close even when we feel far. Think of the letters Paul sent the churches.think of the letters the churches must have sent him. and other missionaries. and and and :( We make it work because we care. because we love. because we know it is worth it. my week between Kenya and teen camp i took off to catch up from jetlag and culture shock but maybe ill just head to singapore instead! :-p
Post a Comment