Posts Tagged ‘friendship’
Cindy La Ferle on January 24th, 2013
It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” — John Leonard
More than ever, sociologists and health professionals are studying friendship and how it impacts our physical and emotional well-being. New studies show that having a circle of close friends will improve our odds of surviving cancer and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease.
In fact, failing to develop true friendship can be as bad for us as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. (Take the test linked at the end of this post to determine if you’re a good friend or a neglectful one.) According to research cited by the AARP, Facebook friends and other “online relationships” don’t count. To reap the full benefits of connection, we must turn off our electronic devices and meet face to face.
Even if we’re not social butterflies, most of us can list several people who enrich our lives in some way. There’s the neighbor who collects our mail while we’re on vacation; the co-worker who shares career leads; the soccer mom who brings an extra thermos of coffee to the games. And if we’re lucky, we can top that list with a couple of lifelong pals who’ll answer our phone calls after midnight when we’re worried about a biopsy.
Along the way, we’re also likely to encounter a few promise breakers, snipers, competitors, users, freeloaders, and emotional blackmailers, notes Jan Yager, Ph.D., a sociologist who has researched this topic since the 1980s. In her best-selling guide, When Friendship Hurts: How to Deal with Friends Who Betray, Abandon, or Wound You, Yager describes the 21 types of toxic friends and explains how to deal with them. The most durable friendships, she discovered, are always supportive, responsive, and reciprocal — and can weather minor transgressions.
Of course, in a highly mobile culture like ours, some friendships are built on the shifting sands of proximity and aren’t meant to last.
But if we’re not mindful, Yager warns, our closest relationships can wilt or wither from neglect. (Even family ties loosen and unravel when we do little more than take them for granted.) In other words, your best friends shouldn’t have to remind you that birthday cards, get-well notes, phone updates, souvenirs, and other tokens of affection or appreciation are fuel to the bonfire of enduring friendship.
On the other hand, as Yager and other experts point out, sometimes it’s necessary to weed out friends who make us feel used, bullied, or invalidated.
“When I pay attention to my feelings, I know when people are draining my energy,” said Cindy Hampel, a Royal Oak resident and author of It’s Not Personal: Lessons I’ve Learned from Dealing with Difficult People (Orange Sun Press; $14.95). “If someone consistently tries to make me feel guilty or afraid, then I’ll just seek out other people who treat me more reasonably.”
Once we hit midlife, we realize there are only so many years left for the pleasures we’ve postponed – including more time with friends.
Several years ago, I learned one of my hardest life lessons while watching my dear uncle lose his three-month battle with pancreatic cancer. The terminal diagnosis was made on his 65th birthday. Newly retired from Chrysler, my uncle had looked forward to spending long afternoons on the golf course with his best buddies – but ended up in hospice instead.
Which is partly why I agree with the experts who advise making friendship a priority, even when we think we don’t have time for it. The more stressed out or overbooked we are, the more we need to reconnect with supportive people.
So, call your best friend or look up an old room mate. Check in with someone you’ve been meaning to phone for ages. Plan a lunch date, send a card, throw a potluck, or meet some pals for a round of golf. Make time for the treasured friends who’ve been there for you – and think of them as good health insurance. — Cindy La Ferle
Are you a good friend or a bad friend? Take Martha Beck’s quiz, following her article on friendship in “O” magazine. Click here.
Cindy La Ferle on May 23rd, 2012
When we change the way we communicate, we change society.” — Clay Shirky
My husband was the first to deliver the happy news: Two of our son’s best friends from high school had announced their wedding engagements on Facebook last week — within a few short days of each other. As the family reporter, I’m usually on top of these things. But because I had deactivated my Facebook account in January, I was totally out of the loop.
And I felt like one of the Flintstones. I’d been living under a rock while everyone else was throwing a big party in cyberspace without me.
Which is partly why I tip-toed back to Facebook after cruising along happily without it (most of the time) for the past four months.
Before I go on, I need to tell you that I’m not the least bit sorry for taking a break from it. My self-imposed sabbatical from social media — Facebook, especially — helped me appreciate the positive aspects of being connected 24/7 to the Big World Out There. At the same time, I thought long and hard about the difference between online friendships and 3-D friendships and how much attention I can (reasonably) give to each.
During my time away from Facebook, I missed a lot of good news from a lot of nice people. And I rediscovered how much harder it is to communicate with out-of-town friends and colleagues. Facebook makes it so much easier to share announcements of any kind in one fell swoop — writing classes; new blog posts; wedding engagements — something I had taken for granted while using it. Though posting my updates seemed awfully impersonal at times, that was part of Facebook’s ease and charm. When I wasn’t on Facebook, I was sending more email announcements, which were probably more annoying and more invasive than status updates.
What I didn’t miss about Facebook was its dangerously addictive aspects. Once I got through the initial withdrawal period, I rediscovered luxurious bolts of time to write and sell more essays and articles. More time to meet friends for lunch. More time to catch up on the phone. More time to get my home in order. More time for long walks outside. In other words, after pulling away from the distractions of social media, I felt more focused and balanced — even in the midst of my elderly mother’s ongoing health crises.
In other words, I figured out how and where I’d been wasting all the time I thought I didn’t own anymore.
In other words, I realized I’d been abusing Facebook.
Like any tool, Facebook is incredibly handy. But there’s a right way — a respectful way — to use it. So, this time around, I am setting tighter limits. I’ll be checking in less often, and won’t be leaving as many comments as I used to. I’ll continue to exercise most of my bragging rights — and personal info — here on my blog. I plan to enjoy Facebook for what it is — and refuse to feel guilty if I can’t keep up with it daily.
All said and done, I still believe it’s essential to strike a healthy balance between the time I spend “communicating” online and the time I spend with loved ones in the real world. And yes, I remain conflicted about Facebook — and worried our culture’s obsession with social media. A recent article on Facebook in The Atlantic‘s “Culture Issue” articulates many of my concerns. How about you? How do you use Facebook?– Cindy La Ferle
Cindy La Ferle on January 24th, 2012
I’m a Facebook friend of Bob Dylan, which probably means I have a deeply meaningful relationship with his publicist.” — Daniel A. Farber*
UPDATE: The following essay was syndicated by BlogHer last week. So far, the post has earned over 22,000 “reads” on the BlogHer site. Click here to read the comments. Maybe I hit a nerve?
Before it became an attractive nuisance, Facebook was fun — really, really fun.
At the start, I enjoyed reconnecting with old pals and coworkers I hadn’t seen in years. A few had published books or become grandparents; others had moved to retirement homes in Tampa or Hilton Head.
In addition to cute family photos, I got an eyeful of political rants and viewpoints that took me by surprise. (An editor I’d pegged as liberal, for instance, turned out to be a closet conservative.) It was all so compelling that, instead of tackling a new project, I’d spend entire mornings reading Facebook updates from literally hundreds of folks, a few of whom I’d met only once.
How many friends do you (really) have?
By the time I deactivated my Facebook account last week, I had accumulated 555 friends. The list included former classmates, relatives, students from my writing workshops, readers of my columns, and background actors I’d met on film sets. My posse also included good neighbors who lived just a couple of blocks away, which seemed like overkill, but what the heck?
I wasn’t exactly a friend whore (someone who collects random friends to appear popular) but I rarely turned down friendship requests, and I un-friended only one person whose political comments were ill-informed and cruel.
In any event, with so many people to look after, Facebook soon became another task on my ever-expanding to-do list, and I was conflicted about using it.
In 2009, Sheryl Sandberg reported on The Facebook Blog that the average user had 120 friends. Today, Facebook reports that the average user now has 130 friends — and we all know users who have upwards of 1,000. But in my admittedly old-fashioned view, even 130 friends are difficult to keep track of in a timely, courteous fashion — unless you have nothing to do but twiddle with your computer all day.
Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction.” — Jesse Eisenberg
Either way, I’ve always believed that real friendship is reciprocal, not promotional. And certainly more than virtual. Real friends do more than punch the “like” key on your status updates. Real friends call you directly on the phone, send cards, help you move furniture, meet you for breakfast, babysit your cats, or otherwise make three-dimensional efforts to be there for you.
Of course, you need lots of extra time for real friendship like that. My “networking” on Facebook was devouring some of that time, and I was starting to feel guilty about it.
Along the same lines, it also struck me that Facebook fosters laziness. Even in a crisis, I wasn’t getting as many emails or phone calls from family members because, as one put it, “We already read your updates on Facebook.”
Forget you. It’s all about me.
Worse yet, I worried that Facebook was making an egomaniac out of me. (Isn’t it enough to be writing a blog?) Along with photos of my latest art projects or links to my articles, I started posting attention-getting tidbits, which, before Facebook, I would have shared with a mere handful of trusted, longtime friends. Why in the world did I need to broadcast to 555 Facebook users that my cat suddenly decided to pee in the toilet in our master bathroom?
In short, Facebook was becoming a tool to promote myself, with a few family photos thrown in for good measure. I’d gotten so busy that I wasn’t taking time to comment on my friends’ updates and photos — unless they left comments on mine.
I’ve always tried to avoid one-sided relationships, but good lord, there I was, conducting one of my own.
So, here are the questions I asked myself when I considered pulling the plug on my Facebook account:
1. Am I giving up my family’s privacy in exchange for building a platform or a following on Facebook?
2. Do new acquaintances on Facebook deserve the same attention as my oldest friends and relatives?
3. Do I care as much about other friends’ status updates as I want them to care about mine? Am I using or exploiting my Facebook friends?
4. How much time do I have to reciprocate comments?
5. How much do I need to know about other people — and why?
6. Do the “friends” I’ve met only once need up-to-the-minute details of my life? Who should be informed that my mother is ill? Or that I attended someone’s 50th birthday party last night? And is it safe to broadcast when I leave town on vacation?
7. Am I becoming an “all about me” person?
French mystique, oui!
In her new memoir, Lessons from Madame Chic: The Top 20 Things I Learned While Living in Paris, Jennifer L. Scott chronicles the year she studied in Paris and learned a thing or two about the elusive French mystique. Scott, who now lives in Santa Monica, found that an abiding sense of privacy is decidedly French.
“French people, as a habit, do not reveal too much information about themselves. Not to people they know and certainly not to strangers,” Scott writes. In other words, Je ne sais quoi isn’t simply a matter of knowing how to tie a gorgeous scarf.
Scott also notes that most French people do not gab in public on their cell phones; it’s considered boorish to allow others to eavesdrop on conversations. Furthermore, she says, the French are not likely to ask what you do for a living when they first meet you at a party. Out of courtesy and respect, personal details are shared only with intimate friends who’ve been nurtured over time.
Which got me thinking about how much we share on Facebook.
Privacy is dead, and social media hold the smoking gun.” — Pete Cashmore
To be a person of mystery would be very un-American, wouldn’t it? In a culture of celebrity, it stands to reason that so many of us fear we won’t exist if we’re not seen or heard from 24/7. Maintaining a Facebook profile is one way to keep your name “out there” while everyone else is squawking, yelping, chirping, and Tweeting for attention.
At the same time, I’m not opposed to social networking for the right reasons. If you’ve got a product to market — or you are the product — courting a big audience on Twitter or Facebook is undoubtedly good for your business. I won’t argue with that.
What’s for real and what isn’t?
Yet, from a totally personal perspective, I’m secretly thrilled at the thought of wearing a cloak of privacy as I go about my daily routines. I’d like to shop for groceries or visit someone in the hospital without feeling compelled to announce it ASAP on Facebook. I’d like to spend more time reading the novels stacked next to my bed — the novels I’m too tired to read because I’ve strained my eyes staring at a computer screen all day.
And I’d like to spend more time nurturing — and deepening — the three-dimensional friendships I’ve neglected while meeting the challenges life has thrown at me lately. If I cut back on the time I spend playing with social media, these deceptively simple goals would be easier to reach.
Of course, there’s a lot I’ll miss about Facebook. I’ll miss the news from out-of-town friends, links to thought-provoking articles, and all those adorable cat videos. But until my life is back in balance, I have to bow out.
For now, blogging is a less intrusive way to share. And while it’s as public as a newspaper, you can pick and choose which items you want to read. Or you can swim back into cyberspace and surf elsewhere. You’re reading these last paragraphs right now because you found the topic interesting and wanted to dive a little deeper than a sentence or two. That matters a lot to me.
And hey, if you want to share photos of your kids or your cats, I’d still love to see them. Bring your photo albums when we meet in person at our favorite local restaurant. — Cindy La Ferle
– Top quote (from Daniel A. Farber) is from the article “Are 5,001 Facebook Friends One Too Many?” in The New York Times, May 28, 2010–
Cindy La Ferle on January 19th, 2012
We have too little time to waste it in relationships that are not equal and mutually rewarding. Exchanging energy nourishes our souls.”
— Sue Patton Theole in The Woman’s Book of Spirit
In addition to getting my mother adjusted to assisted living — still a challenge — I’m devoting the month of January to organizing clutter. For starters, I bought a portable day planner for keeping track of my mother’s insurance info and medical appointments, plus dozens of other notes to myself.
The new planner now combines my personal data with my mother’s, all in one handy notebook that fits in my purse. While transferring names and numbers to the new pages, I remembered the following essay from my book, Writing Home. It was first published in a local column when I was a younger mom with a school-age child.
Address Book
August 15, 1999; Reprinted from Writing Home.
Some things will always defy our control. Keeping a kid in the same shoe size for more than six months is one example; maintaining a neat, fully updated address book from one year to the next is another. I’m talking about the old-fashioned (not electronic) address books that keep us in social contact — the dog-eared pages we’ve crammed with birthday reminders, letters to answer, and cards announcing new addresses for relocated loved ones.
My own address book is a bit confusing, even to my husband, but it does have a system. For example, one page might be scribbled with little arrows and codes referencing another section of the book (“Look under H/Hill”). This usually means that someone has remarried and changed her name, or that a cousin has left for college or moved to his own apartment.
No matter how badly it’s organized, my address book is irreplaceable, especially during emergencies. This hit me seven years ago after my father died. One of the first things my mother and I did was comb through our address books to locate former coworkers, distant cousins, and old friends who needed to be notified of Dad’s passing. Each name, each address, was a chapter in my father’s history.
Your own address book is probably a chronicle of your ever-evolving relationships — an autobiography in progress. And since relationships are inherently messy, it stands to reason that your address book is messy too. Flipping through mine recently, I made the following observations:
– Reflecting the national average, many of my friends are divorced or working on second marriages.
– Divorce often forces us to choose between friends who used to be a couple.
– Having kids makes a huge difference in our social circle, not to mention the restaurants we frequent.
– The more people we know and love, the harder it is to send birthday cards on time.
– As we age, the line between friends and family starts to blur.
Catching up on the phone last week, Margaret, my former college roommate, and I decided that our midlife definition of “old friends” covers people we’ve known and loved unconditionally for at least half of our lives. They’re the first ones we call when the biopsy results come back or our kids win the big tournament at school.
That’s not to say I undervalue the various gifts my newer friends bring to the table. Some are skilled counselors or tireless cheerleaders; others are better at listening than advice-giving. One brings comic relief to every party, while another is the perfect companion for a silent retreat at a monastery. All have expanded my outlook and enriched my life, and I look forward to our future together.
But I’ve also found that while most of us change or evolve over time, our friendships don’t always change or evolve with us. One friend and I drifted so far apart in our interests that we might just as well have moved to opposite sides of the planet. Another disappeared without a trace after a heartrending divorce.
While every relationship has its low points, the stronger ones survive conflict as well as change of address. But I’ve learned it’s never healthy to cling to an alliance that has turned draining, one-sided, negligent, or destructive. As Emerson said, friendship should offer mutual “aid and comfort” through all of life’s passages. I think it should be fun, too.
A few people with whom I’ve lost touch or parted company are still listed in my address book. At one time, those relationships filled crucial gaps in my life and helped shape the person I am today. I still feel twinges of regret whenever I pause at the pages showing their names and numbers. And because there are a few good memories also attached to those names, I can’t quite bring myself to erase them. – Cindy La Ferle
Click here to read another column I wrote last spring on the benefits of maintaining healthy friendships.
– Writing Home can be purchased at Amazon.com and is available at the Yellow Door Art Market in downtown Berkley, MI. –
Cindy La Ferle on April 17th, 2011
It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” ~John Leonard
All too often, we put our social lives on the back burner because we’re too busy with work or family obligations. Or because we think we have to pull out all the stops to entertain company.
Earlier this year, within a very short period of time, several of my oldest friends buried their beloved parents. With these losses fresh in mind, my friend Debbie (in the photo at left) and I made a pact to get together more often — and to keep it simple.
As the old Beatles song goes, we get by with a little help from our friends. But new research indicates that it goes much deeper than that: An emotionally supportive social network brings us several health benefits. This week’s column on Royal Oak Patch.com is a meditation on the tender topic of friendship. It includes some new resources to help you cultivate, nurture, or weed out your own garden of friends. Please click here to read it. — CL
More than ever, sociologists and health professionals are studying friendship and how it impacts our physical and emotional well-being. New studies show that having a circle of close friends will improve our odds of surviving cancer and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease.
