Friends and Acquaintances

It looks to be another beautiful day in the Ozarks!
The sun is shining and the day will warm up from its current temp of just above freezing to the upper 50s (that's about 14 for my Celcius friends). I've been thinking about friend relationships recently so it was fortuitous that I would get a call from a good friend to start the day.

Yesterday, a Facebook friend made reference to his perceptions of me in a very positive and complimentary way. Since our knowledge of one another and our friend relationship is built on our mutual blogging (he no longer blogs), careers as air traffic controllers, differing religious beliefs, and Facebook posts; there is a possibility that we might not really get along well in real life.
I don't think that's true, but you never really know.

Truthfully, Facebook and other social media outlets have helped us to better isolate ourselves from the world. We've (humans) always been pretty good at wearing masks and hiding parts of our lives from the people we encounter on a regular basis (i.e. coworkers knowing nothing of our personal lives, church members knowing nothing of our pet sins, neighbors not knowing of abusive behaviors, etc.), but I think the internet and its reach can allow us to build whole new personalities that are nothing at all like the people we really are.

I don't believe that most people are that deceptive, but the possibilities exist.
My Facebook friends list is pretty small and the list of friends that I actually follow is even smaller.
I'm often surprised at the people that I meet that tell me they read this blog because many people I know don't know that I write a blog.
And most that do know about it are not regular (if ever) readers of it.

I think that most of our relationships have become superficial. Maybe they've always been that way, but it seems to me that there was a time when people actually got to know one another.
Some people have good instincts about others and can make quick and accurate decisions about whether or not they want to invest time into building friendship relationships. Other have predetermined to be friends with everyone (because everyone wants to be friends with them) or friends with no one.

I think my people instincts are pretty good. I am rarely surprised by people's behavior. I suppose much of that is that I set expectations pretty low and tend to make allowances for our flawed human selves. I trust very few people and even those few would likely get passes for failure.
People are people and I am no better than anyone else when it comes to that.

Having said that, I do treasure the few close friends that I have.
If you are a social media friend, I also value our relationship and it would be nice to actually meet each other or to see each other again after the many years that have passed.
Perhaps, there are a few people out in the virtual world that would like to meet me, as well.
Perhaps, not.

Be well,
John <><