Friends or Acquaintances

Technology is great! I like the information available at my fingertips, I like the easy connectivity of social networking, I like being able to show pictures of my dogs or holidays to my friends in an instant.

I used to be regular of Facebook, but these days I use it mainly as a photo sharing website and to publicise my blog.

I use Twitter in a far different way, as a daily communication, a means of accessing the outside world. I read opinion on the issues of the day, I offer and receive prayer from twitter contacts who share a connection with this God chap. It causes me to stop and think, on a fairly regular basis.

Now there is Google+ and with this the option to place all contacts into different circles, almost a ranking system. This ensures that certain people see certain feeds and therefore others do not. This has been cause for debate on the nature of friendship. What does it take for a person to be in the friend group rather than in the acquaintances group? How is my relationship with these people different?

In the world outside the internet, otherwise known as 'real life' I have few personal friends. Before you go all soft and worry about lonely old me, allow me to qualify that statement. I have few personal friends because in order for me to classify someone as a friend I have to have made a serious emotional connection with them. On the other hand I have many very lovely and special acquaintances. I care about all the people I am in contact with in this mortal life, they are in my prayers, I wish them well, I enjoy their company, this does not necessarily mean that they are all therefore my closest friends.

I recently had a look at my facebook friends list, and after having a look, I decided that it was time to do some reordering. There was no point having people on my list to 'make up the numbers' a sort of popularity parade left over from teenage years, if they were on the list and they never interacted with me nor I with them then they were removed. At present 99.9% of facebook contacts, are people I have met in real life. However the percentage of those who fit into the friend category as I see it, is very very much smaller.

My twitter accont is very different, the vast majority of people I follow and/or am followed by I have never met in the flesh. However, I appreciate their tweets, I am challenged, comforted, and entertained by them and I get to know people just that little bit better through reading their tweeting.

Google+ is only in its infancy - I barely understand the mechanisms of it, and at the moment in my account, like facebook, everyone is a friend. I am not sure whether a new social network would add anything to my online existance and am only tentatively involved. To separate everyone (I only have about 5 contacts at the moment anyway) into groups seems rather lacking in point. I don't feel it is appropriate to talk about sensitive subjects (i.e. subjects one is not comfortable sharing with anyone other than their closest friends) in great depth on a social networking website. I also value transparency, bitching behind other's backs belongs in the playground. So for these reasons my friends and acquaintances will be remaining mixed. As they are on Facebook and Twitter. If I don't trust them - I wont add them. Simple.

When kids have cameras...

A dear friend of mine came here with her 4 lovely children on Tuesday. They were all playing with my son's Kidizoom camera. I have just sorted through the photos and come across some corkers but because I love the woman in question I shall share some favourites here rather than on facebook:

A rare and deeply attractive picture of me to start!

My friend tried to hide...

 ...and then this happened when they caught her!

 And finally her youngest son (who will be officially my God-son tomorrow if I get away with this) didn't seem impressed:

Friends Forever?

We had some playground politics on Friday. Little Bear was the only child in his class not to receive an invitation to a birthday party.

There are lots of reasons why this was a fairly reasonable thing to do. This is a child Little Bear has hurt in the past, Little Bear has a reputation for being "difficult", and last and by no means least the child concerned obviously does not like Little Bear. However if the parent only knew how much not being invited would upset Little Bear then maybe she would have had a word with me so that I could work out a way to tell him he couldn't go rather than just being ostracised as she made her way down the line in the playground giving out invites. (Note: Little Bear wouldn't cope with a kid's party, I would hate it as I have only one playground buddy, and we would make our excuses anyway - but being asked would mean a lot.)

Later that day Little Bear lost it with the same boy. (Teachers were not aware of the party issue) He very nearly bit him but resisted at the last minute, apologised, said he knew he shouldn't do it and burst into tears. This is major progress for Little Bear who has a fairly basic grasp of his own emotions and very limited impulse control (amongst other problems) and his teacher's recognised this with a special achievement sticker.

At home LB started discussing birthday parties all of a sudden (he would like a dinosaur party and we would be guests), so I casually brought up the subject of birthdays in his class. He told me about this little boy's birthday but said "He said I'm not his friend". Ah I thought to myself, that's why you tried to bite him.

Can I just point out at this point that there is NO excuse for biting or indeed hurting another in any way, and LB is fully aware of this, however for him it is a sign of extreme emotional stress. "I don't know how to handle this, I can't cope!" and then an inappropriate response follows. He doesn't intend to hurt but it doesn't change the fact that it does still bloody well hurt (I am not sure that I would be able to manage with a friend who bit me"!

So it got me thinking, how does one explain friendship to a 4yr old who has emotional delay and suspected ASD? How does one explain friendship to a 4yr old at all? How does one explain friendship to an adult?

I am a fairly straightforward person. I therefore only have two types of friend. I have lots of people with whom I am friendly, I care for them, and they are remembered in my prayers and there are lots of these people. Then there is one other group to whom I shall dedicate this post,  the ones who fit the following criteria:

• We may have known each other for many years, it may just be months but we are confidants for each other.
• We may speak daily, weekly, monthly, or annually but when we do meet our relationship is just the same as it was the last time we were together.
• We know each other so well that we can tell how the other is feeling without being explicitly told, and then we can allow momentary irritation to wash over us, safe in the knowledge that there was no hurt meant.
• We appreciate every inch of each others personalities and embrace them - even the annoying bits.
• No matter where we are, near or far, we are in each other's thoughts and prayers.

That's explained it for me but it's taken 30 years on this earth to work it out - my 4 year old has got a while to go yet.