My New Year's resolution is to call every FB friend this year

[Anonymous]

That is a great update!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know...I have like 65% of Facebook friends that attended high school with me, yet either they shunned me or teased me. What is that all about?

I would love to talk to them almost thirty decades later and ask them questions.

What do they remember about me in high school? What was their impression of me from the start? Did they have any memories of actually ignoring me or teasing me?

And I could interview them one by one.

Man..This could start a new reality show. I would tune in, wouldn't you?

There was a new yorker article a few months ago about someone who had been terribly bullied by one particular boy, and he wrote an article about chasing the bully down and talking with him. The bully claimed to have to memory of torturing him, but had grown up to be an embezzler/felon of some sort.

JUMP, I love your project!

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the updates! This is fascinating. Can you give me a sense of how your conversations get to the point of people telling you these intimate details of people's lives? Where do you start? I am having a hard time imagining getting a phone call from someone out of the blue and telling them all about how my marriage is falling apart.

And seriously, you should write a blog!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I'll check back every now and again with updates. Not daily, because that's narcissistic. But every few weeks.

I did call a friend today with whom I haven't spoken in about 10 years. She was a funny lady. She used to introduce me publically as Eve Summers because she said I looked like the kind of woman running through the fields in those douche commercials. Anyway...

We had a really nice talk. Really intimate too. It is amazing how the closeness of the friendship is almost permanent...even when you no longer speak with one another. We talked about her marriage -- its disintegration but also the attempts to try again. I felt bad for her, because it must be so hard to get to the point that you decide to end this union. She was saying that the problem was how much time he spent flying and how it controlled his life. He was ruining their budget spending money on airplane equipment and was always going out flying, sometimes without telling her. He clearly loved flying more than her. And he even left their daughter's wedding early to go to some flying show.

So as I am listening, I am of course feeling very bad for her, but part of me is thinking, "How cool is that? The guy is an aviator." So when she says she is trying to work things out with him after a 5 year break, I start to talk to her about setting limits for what she can handle, but also trying to better understand his (and her) passions. I suggest maybe she can go out flying with him to share this passion, and she said she did do that from time to time, but she found it mind-numbingly boring. "I'm just out there in the cold with my jacket on watching him fly his stupid plane." When I ask her why she isn't actually in the plane with him, she starts laughing and tells me this whole flying thing is with RADIO CONTROLLED AIRPLANES! Toy airplanes. He is buying toy airplane parts. He left their daughter's wedding to go to a model airplane show!

Then I just laughed with her. But with a lot a sympathy.


OMG. LOLOLOL. You are THE COOLEST poster on DCUM and this is the best post I've ever read here!

I am loving this thread so much!

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't the OP starting a blog out herself? I am not sure this experiment would be a good idea for a blog. Sure, she can change her name, names of who she is contacting, but someone may put pieces together.

[Anonymous]

Presuming the OP is from the DC area, a lot of time this weekend could be devoted to this effort.

[Jump]

I'm back. I fed off my inventory for the last couple weeks. Best friend. check. Ex husband. check. Office workers. check.

Finally, last night I called this guy Dan with whom I went to acting school in the 1980s. I did need to finally cross some men off the list (besides my ex husband) and Dan fit the bill. First he was gay. I think I mentioned these conversations with married men with whom I had not spoken in 30 years were likely to be VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. Second he HAD given me his number back in January and seemed enthusiastic to talk. He suggested March, but of course last night I tell myself, "Oh, why wait until March?" So I call.

Dan starts sobbing saying this really isn't a good time to talk. He just found out his cat has cancer. Immediately, I am thrown into this awkward space of apologizing and sending sympathies to Dan about his cat, when I haven't talked with Dan in 30 years. And it is awkward for him too. He finds himself on the phone with someone he is ABSOLUTELY NOT CLOSE WITH AND NEVER HAS BEEN, and he just wants to get off and I'm there talking about my three cats, and I understand how horrible this is, blah blah blah. I'm an idiot.

Thankfully this morning I had a nice talk today with a girl I went to elementary school through high school, Laura. Haven't seen her since high school, haven't talked with her I would say since we were 10. We chatted for 40 minutes about our lives. And we talked deeply -- about our failures, our passions, our transformations. I am sure we never had a long conversation before -- not ever. Somehow that didn't matter. It didn't matter that we really never WERE friends. We were people who had common touchstones. 6th grade. Band practice. The hair salon we all went to in the mall. And some common friends who she stayed in touch with (and I let drift completely out of my life). Somehow that was enough of a base to drift on and on about hopes and dreams not realized and joys immeasurable.

I guess it's the age. We both reverted to thoughts about living life to its fullest, not letting the grass grow under your feet, finally realizing that ultimately life is not a competition. It is a short time where you get to love and live and appreciate and grow. And during that time you are going to face the tragedies of loss: friends, parents, sometimes children even. And don't forget cats with cancer.

[Anonymous]

Good update "Jump". I am glad you created a screen name of some sort so we know who you are when the updates post.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I read an article- tho can't find it now, that said for the typical person there are only 5-7 people on their Facebook with whom they would have a phone conversation.

[Anonymous]

thanks for the latest recap, JUMP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I read an article- tho can't find it now, that said for the typical person there are only 5-7 people on their Facebook with whom they would have a phone conversation.

Not quite what you are saying but this falls into the lines of the topic at hand: http://fusion.net/story/167767/i-forced-people-to-talk-to-me-on-the-phone-for-a-week/

[Anonymous]

Hi there - A friend of mine introduced me to this thread - I think what you're doing is so interesting and we'd love to interview for Fox 5. If you're interested would you please email me: [e-mail]. My name is Sarah Fraser, I'm a contributor for Fox 5.

Thanks again, Sarah
Sarah Fraser
[e-mail]

[Jump]

Last week I talked with a guy with whom I worked 20 years ago. He lives in India now. Note to self: Before you call India make sure you have installed international roaming on your phone. Otherwise that one phone call will cost $108.

Anyway, this guy was super entrepreneurial. He was always coming up with ideas to make money. He wrote a few online manuals for computer programs and then sold direct to Amazon and had all his friends give the books five stars. Anyway, at some point I became involved with some of these pursuits. One of the ideas was to buy up a bunch of domain names that were still available and then try to resell them to businesses wanting a killer website name.

So together with 2 friends, we bought up about 15 domain names and waited for the money to roll in. Of course, all the REALLY good names like Books.com or Greateats.com were already taken. We definitely bought names a few tiers down -- findaroute.com, germanonline.com, collegesanduniversities.com, and so forth. Somehow in the thrill of the chase, we bought the domain name breastybeauties.com. Now, the minute we bought that I was filled with regret. I am in a line of work that simply does not correspond with a pornographic website name. So for the year we held onto these site names (undeveloped of course) I was constantly in fear that one of my colleagues was going to find out I was a closet flesh peddler. It was horrible. At the end of the year, when it came time to renew our 'leases', we had only sold one stupid site -- collegesanduniversities.com. I was just happy to dump them and get my name off whatever rolodex was charting porn site owners.

Anyway, I called him and I sort of thought this guy would be rolling in the dough. It was really shocking though. It turns out he gave up his high paying job and went back to India to take care of his aging parents, and he never really thought about money again. He just got a regular old job to be near his parents and take care of them. He lives a simple life. He cares about simple things like having fresh air and trees around him, and helping others when he can. So that goes to show how much a person can change in 20 years.

Hopefully, if someone looks back to some of the things I was doing 20 years ago, they will think I've changed too.

[Anonymous]

Hey that's cool Sarah Fraser wrote. I remember her from the Kane show. Hi Sarah!

[Anonymous]

OP I saw the title of your thread and thought, Oh man how annoying to get a call from somebody I went to high school with whose FB friend request I just accepted to be polite. But it is really nice reading your updates about your meaningful calls with people you haven't spoken to in eons. It reminds me of some of the conversations I've had at high school and college reunions with people I was never really that close to, but have some shared history with and made a new connection with. Thanks for sharing this with us!