Now I've had a slightly strange upbringing. I moved about a fair amount, owing to the dictates of where I ended up going to school. While I can say I did have friends at school, I have no idea of where they are, and in most cases I've actually forgotten their names. Friendsreunited didn't spark my interest in getting in touch with them either!
At Uni, I pretty much got into being in one place long enough to make friends I knew I could call on to come out to the pub, got into a lot of bands, and generally had a great time. I was there long enough to see several years of student friends come and go, and I still had a great time every year.
But time has taken its inevitable toll on those friendships, until now we rarely see each other - even the guys from the last band I was in. Our lives step in to take people we felt strongly for from us, and communication seems to inevitably die with geographic isolation. Here, the internet cannot help: it's just not the same.
With all the moving around that Nic and I have done in the last 7 years, we've never really spread roots anywhere: all I can hope is that my friends have found their place and stopped frantically trying to move up, on, and out... and perhaps come to rest somewhere where they can actually be happy. Me? The only real friend I can say I truly have is Nic, because she's always with me (OK, except for the last few weeks). When you see someone every day, it's that human interaction, the face-to-face, the shaking hands, the contact... these are the things that bind people. Cyberspace is cold, compressed, blocky, with voice calls that break up like daleks and juddering video. Improving these quality of service issues might help, but there'd still be a lack of human touch.
Did we really do ourselves any favours at all when we stopped being agrarian and living in one place our whole lives? I feel lost and if it wasn't for Nic I'd definitely feel alone and isolated! Thank god for the one true friend.
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