Friend me

“We become who we are in conjunction with other people becoming who they are... People don’t develop first and then create relationships.  Relationships create people.”  --David Brooks, The Social Animal

In the Facebook Era, the term “social networking” has taken on a different connotation, but the concept of people creating webs of relationships is as old as Homo sapiens.  These internets of humans once emerged primarily from family or tribal groups, then commerce allowed for new connections based on economic interactions, and today the world wide web has made friend-making as easy as mouse-clicking.  But the phenomenon of globalization has created unique environments for social networking in more ways than just a boom for online communities.  Today it is possible (and common) for a young person to move half-way across the globe without previously knowing a single soul in the destination.  How is she--a foreigner, a nonnative speaker, an outsider connected neither by family nor economy--to cultivate her social network? 

The truth is, I don’t have many friends yet.  

I spent my first month in Colombia bonding with one of my roommates who moved back to the States last week.  

I spent the day after her goodbye party regretting that a few of my students had been in attendance (and had seen me in a less-than-professional state) and therefore I spent last Friday feeling cautious and reserved when I was out with a group of students from English Club.  

I spent one evening on my doorstep explaining to one of my few friends why we would never be more than friends (and realizing that we would now be much less so).  

I spend my days preoccupied and happily independent and I spend my nights debating whether I would rather be alone or in less-than-inspiring company. 

I tease my two roommates for their menageries of women that would rival that of Casanova.  The contrast of their love lives to my own could not be more stark.  But I feel neither envy nor reproach.   I’m just casting out my social net where I can and waiting to see what kind of catch I can get.  I hoping to reel in some nice girls (I’ve found myself in too many precariously platonic relationships recently), maybe some runners or climbers...   I’m not desperate enough yet to latch on to whatever comes my way, but I admit I am widening my gaze.