I love it when people leave over a thing that I didn’t even know was a thing.
I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words they all loved, then I said one thing they didn’t agree with, or think they don’t agree with (it’s not like they actually bothered to find out why or what I meant), and they stormed out in high dudgeon.
The only thing I can say is, well, thanks.
Stonekettle Station
Stonekettle Station posted the above quote just a few seconds ago. I love it when people leave over a thing that I didn’t even know was a thing was my dead honest response. I love it because I don’t know everything, and it gives me something to go research for a few minutes or hours. I love it because it gives me new things to write about, to muse over. Most of all I love it because, as Jim says in his rant real friends don’t do that and that’s the one tool that is lacking in social networking as it stands these days. A good winnowing tool to separate the chaff from the wheat; to separate real friends from hangers on.
Real life needs that tool just as badly as social networking does; unless you are willing to be dead honest with everyone around you and suffer the consequences of that. So few people are even willing to admit that they are uncertain, that they don’t know the thing that the other person it ranting on about, that the average interaction between strangers resembles nothing more than posing and pretense of interest; all while both parties and their observers are wondering what the hell is really being discussed here.
It doesn’t matter the subject, or the names in question. Any two people discussing any given subject will eventually stumble across something that one person thinks is the most important thing and the other person has never heard of that thing, or has heard of it and thinks it is a waste of time even to discuss it. What happens next determines if they really are friends, or not.
Friend really isn’t the right word, anyway. Friend is too casual, like someone you occasionally meet while out drinking, but you wouldn’t trust to help you dispose of that body in your trunk (hypothetically. Like a zombie plan) you wouldn’t expect that person to know everything that is important to you. What followers on social networking engage in feels more like worship than friendship. Which is just setting yourself up for disaster in the end. There isn’t anyone out there who is perfect, who has perfect knowledge. At some point, even your closest brother in arms will say something that you think is unforgivably stupid.
A real friend forgives anyway, or at least accepts the imperfection. It would be mighty dull being surrounded by perfect people. That would be my personal hell, being surrounded by people who agreed with everything I said. I live for the next good argument, the next time someone disagrees with me and then offers a counter-argument that makes me think. You can never do enough thinking in this life.
