Friends like these

[j4]

As far as I can tell, nearly everybody on LiveJournal thinks that calling the list of watched journals a "friends" list is a big glaring misnomer. But fortunately most of the people I know aren't naïve enough to infer from the liberal (mis)use of words like "friends" and "community" that by joining LiveJournal they will instantly enter into a glorious utopia where they're showered with love by people who were previously strangers to them.

Unfortunately, this doesn't make it any more pleasant when people who I regard as real friends in real life decide to tell me that I'm a worthless friend because I don't follow up to their last post on LiveJournal. I didn't realise that when they voluntarily joined LiveJournal I had entered into a contract to a) read every new update to their journal as soon as it was posted, b) follow up to every post, c) guess that a fairly generic-looking paddy about the technical crapness of LiveJournal and NTL is actually a hugely emotional trauma about the failure of a community to nurture and support them, or d) chase them up on email and implore them to return to LiveJournal.

If people don't want to use LiveJournal, then fine. I don't see it as an alternative to friendship, merely another way of keeping in touch with people. Some of my friends don't have mobile phones, so I don't text them. Some of them don't use email, so I phone them and meet them face-to-face occasionally instead. If a friend decides, for example, that having a mobile phone is a bad investment of their time/money, then I'm not going to run after them screaming "NO! NO! Don't give up the mobile phone! How will I ever keep in touch with you?", I'll just contact them another way.

That is, if they still want to keep in touch.

Comments

[lnr]

I was thinking more of close as an adjective, than of "close friend" as compound noun, if you see what I mean. I don't know if you'd consider yourself a "close friend" to Kate or J-P (I would have thought you were) but you're clearly closer to them than I am.

I think I know what you mean though.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more of close as an adjective

I see what you mean about the distinction, but I mean I'm not sure what "close" really means in the context of a friendship any more. Or a relationship for that matter. I feel like I'm drifting away (or, worse, exploding away) from so many people who are (were?) "close friends" at the moment and does that mean they weren't good friends really? or does it mean I was a crap friend to them? or just that people change and grow apart? or that people fall out sometimes & there's nothing you can do about it? (and how much was the friendship really worth if you can fall out completely over something trivial and stupid?) or just that sometimes people need a break from being in each other's pockets all the time? or what? And I know it's really "does it *count*" blah blah sorrel to be trying to define it at all, but at the same time it just leaves me feeling horribly insecure about everything, and while I don't want to do "Six Different Types Of Friendship: An Asperger's Guide" I do want to understand why everything seems to be going so wrong at the moment.