I am the person who treasures friendship a lot. I like meetups, I love talking for hours and hours and simply enjoy each other company.A short msn conversation , a short hello with the stupid emoticon is enough to make my day sometimes. I guess friends are my avenue of release and escapism, you know..my go to people...
But the more you grow up, it becomes harder to maintain a friendship...as we have our different sets of life, different commitments and different responsibilities. Catching up becomes scarce and meeting up is even worst when you don't make an effort. The phone seems to weigh a ton and the time seems to tick faster and before you know it, days becomes weeks, weeks becomes month and months becomes years. Even with technology, sometimes we manage to alienate ourselves from each other.
I envy those who have made technology work for their friendship. I am not saying I am completely cut off from all my friends. I am just saying I always sit down and wonder, what happen to the some of them...what happen to us?It's not that I am not trying... those close to me, if you hadnt realise it yet, I love sending stupid random messages, like what I hear in the news or what happen to my laptop(Yes it broke into a million pieces!) or sometimes the really stupid stuff like I am sleepy! Not that I have no better things to do(actually that too la..haha) but really, its my attempt to just let those on the other side know I am alive and doing ok. But it breaks my heart though that there is only always a small number of people whom I can always maintain contact, though I've come to know many other wonderful people in my life. And sometimes, I too give up for it is, simply said, sucky to be only on the giving end. Coz it makes me wonder, is it appreciated? I wouldn't know. But I guess this is life. We can't have everything we want. Oh well...
Point is...I am rather disheartened sometimes that with technology, with such promise to connect people together, we still manage to move away from each other...Is this what Durkheim label as anomie? Or that while we forge new relationship elsewhere, the existing has to give way or deterioriate. I am sure this is not so, but then again, what is this I am feeling? And the sad truth of it all is that, we can only blame ourselves for not making the effort. Every relationship needs a jolt always, to keep it going... A mother and daughter needs to make the effort although you know there's blood that binds them. A wife and a husband needs that push eventhough they have promised eternity to each other. Why can't the same goes for every other relationships including friendship?We cannot take for granted that it will always be there...coz sooner or later, it will become stale and what's next? Destruction?
I know I may sound like an old record, harping on the same thing again and again... but this unsettling feeling I have is not something I plucked out of nowhere. It hurts sometimes to know that a friendship has gone stale, without you knowing it. What's worst is when you become so distant, the term friendship becomes just another vocabulary in your speech, rather than that sense of feeling or a sense of attachment. A friend once told me, "it's not my loss". I wish I can share the same sentiment, but the sad truth is, I am that sensitive son(daughter?) of a gun and with every inkling of a decline of a friendship, I grieve.
Hanim