My New Year's resolution is to call every FB friend this year
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Anonymous
OMG of course I am not doing that. I am 51 years old. People my age don't do that. I am messengering people for their phone numbers. This is the test. If I suddenly have a wave of unfriending, I'll know why. Of course, I will probably only start to have the seriously awkward requests for phone numbers in June or July. I can coast until then on people I actually DO talk with from time to time. It will be easier with girls, for sure. The boys -- sorry, middle aged men -- those will be more difficult. First off, I am not completely sure I actually ever spoke with some of these people. There is this one guy, Ben B. I remember he was tall. And he was friends with Alan T. That's it. Literally. And if I were pressed, I'm not sure I could swear he was friends with Alan T. Secondly, I'm divorced. And some people...some people's wives...are not keen to have some old high school friend from 30 years ago call up and ask how things are shaking. Obviously, if these people wanted to talk with me, they already would have! Still, I'm sure there is something worthwhile in the effort. Maybe I'll discover something about myself in the process. Like I shouldn't post on FB when I've had a few glasses of wine. |
Anonymous
If you have your FB set up for friends only to see that type of information, then who cares. |
Anonymous
This! This is why so many people complain about their Facebook friends, apparently they've friended perfect strangers or people they love to hate. |
Anonymous
OP, you are the coolest ever and I wish I was your FB friend! Lol. |
Anonymous
| OP, this is fabulous. You need to document it! Start a blog, do a video...anything but SOMETHING. |
Anonymous
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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. |
Anonymous
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I like you, OP.
I hope your project brings you much joy. Keep us updated. |
Anonymous
Me too. This is fantastic! I think I would totally watch a show! |
Anonymous
Thank you for saving that to the end!! Made for an awesome story. I totally envisioned a guy in his little plane scooting up and down the east coast. I'm going to love hearing your stories, op! Happy new year! |
Anonymous
| NP here, saying Happy New Year to OP and thank you for the inspiration to reconnect. Won't be doing it on or through FB -- I have a personal list of "I really need to call him/her....." that rolls over from week to week, month to month, year to year, etc. |
Anonymous
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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? |
Anonymous
| Another reason I'm glad I'm not on Facebook... |
Anonymous
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Hi OP! I did started something similar on NYE. I started randomly texting/calling my friends I don't get to see or talk with much. Most of them are connected to me on FB, so I know the basics of their daily lives, but I wanted to tell them they're important to me and wish them a happy new year.
It was fantastic. I left a lot of voicemails, had a few nice conversations, and exchanged great texts with some friends. I've decided to periodically keep this up. I don't intend on contacting all of my FB friends. Unlike you, I don't have FB friends from 30 years ago, and most of them I have IRL regular contact with, but there are some that live thousands of miles away and I want to contact them more personally this year. Enjoy your project, OP. I bet you'll have many wonderful reconnections. |
Anonymous
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OP here. I'm signing in rather than posting anonymous.
Well, it's been another week. Some good things happen when you decide to call everyone on your FB list. First, you fulfil the obligations you already had, but maybe you fulfil them more quickly. For example my cousin. I just lost my mom 2 months ago, and I have been meaning to call my cousin to check on her and her dad (my mom's brother). He is the last surviving sibling, he's 88, and I knew he must be grieving terribly. I have been reading my mom's high school diaries and there is hardly a page in them where his name doesn't appear. They did everything together. So, obviously, I wanted to check up on him in particular. Now, the FB challenge should clearly be a second order motivation, but to be honest, I often put off the things that I really mean to do. I couldn't tell you why. So something as simple as my FB challenge gave me the motivation to lift the phone and call my cousin and find out how he (and she) are doing. I'm so glad, because it did me so much good. My cousin ended up spending most of the time reminiscing about her own memories of my mom, and we both just sobbed and sobbed. We should talk more often. And I always say we will. The other good thing that happens is that you find yourself forced to confront the reality of people's lives and take actions. I discovered this week the awkward conversations I imagined are not likely to be limited to people I don't remember. 30 years can change a person. A lot. One of my calls was to a friend, Annette. I went to high school with her. I remember her as super fun, super crazy, sharp as a tack. She is now unfortunately a virtual recluse. She is divorced with a special needs son, works in the back office of her mom's bus company, and she doesn't drive farther than Target because she's afraid. And here I am on the phone with her, forced to acknowledge that we were once good friends and I knew nothing about what had become of her. Anyway, somehow I found myself saying she needed to come down and visit me in Washington, so that I could revive her social life. So now she is mapping out how to get down here following the train tracks in case she doesn't feel she can make it the whole way by car. She will abandon the vehicle at the nearest train station if it starts to get too dicey. I'll be very honest, I dread her coming. I am not looking forward to this at all. But I'm glad I offered to have her down here anyway. I took the name JUMP as my login name because maybe that's what I'm hoping I can do this year. Just jump. |
Jump
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| Okay, I'm not sure exactly if this is under my new name JUMP. Well I am glad I didn't pick the name TECH SAVVY. |