Friendships

     I got to thinking today about friendship.  A good friend of my family died March 6th, her name was Annie Walker, and she has been a very good friend of the family for nearly 20 years.  The thing is, because most of the time we lived fifty miles apart or more, I didn't know this incredible woman as much as I really wanted to.  She had an incredible sense of humor, an impeccable fashion sense and well as you can tell I really loved her.  She's gone and she was only 76 years old.

My mother meet Annie first at an HIV+ Mother's Support group in Warren, Ohio nearly 21years ago.  Annie had a son who also at the time living with AIDS and unfortunately Glenn died in 1996 from complications to AIDS.

I decided to write about this today because it seems like I have a lot of "friendships", but I really wonder how many of them are as close as I would like them too be.  I have one friend from when I was a child that I still stay in contact with and she is like a sister to me.  But for some reason I got to thinking today that a lot of what I have are decent friendships but as  not solid/close as I would really like them to be.  What keeps this this way?

When Ron was so bad and then dying in 2002 I had a small group of seven people who helped me take care of Ron at home so he could die at home.  Honestly, to tell you the truth I don't know if I have that now.  I say that because I can't ever imagine having to ask for that kind of assistance again.  I can't imagine that I have those kind of bonds with people, when many times I long exactly for what I can't imagine already having.  Maybe it is me, maybeI alrady have it and am unaware of it.

I have some close friendships, don't get me wrong--- but I don't as of now, even have someone I could pick up the phone and say "Hey would you like to see a movie with me"... like last night I went to see  "Oz the Great and Powerful" alone because I felt like I had no idea to call.  The other problem is I have never even tried doing just that--calling and saying "Hey would you like to go to a movie".  I wonder what it is I fear? Why is it I have never reached out even for the simplest of things?

Maybe I need to be more vulnerable and more accessible. Maybe I should not come across as "so needy",  Maybe I need to speak my mind more honestly.  I was in a group of people when I first moved away from home, a group of young gay man all in our 20's-30's, who unfortunately now all dead except me.  I was/am the only one who saw 40.  I have a small handful of friends from my years living in Cleveland, but somehow---and I am not exactly sure how-- distance and maybe time have us not as close as I would like to be.

But how does someone build a "deeper" friendship like that?  How does it begin?  How does it develop?  Do I simply say amongst the people I know that, "I would like something more"?  Is it that really simple?  I want the circle of friends who  would do things together, know each other really well, be there for each other at our lowest and be able to say anything too at anytime.

Maybe that's all I need to say.  That the "acquaintances" I have now I would like more out of.  That there are people "I know" but don't know well enough to "feel" like they are close friends.  People I desperately want to know better, people I want to do things with.

I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea here... I deeply love the people in my life, I love who they are or they wouldn't be in my life to begin with.  But what I will say is maybe some of it is me and maybe some of it is that technology has changed the dynamic of friendship. In an era of Facebook, Twitter, Instant Messaging, Facetime,Skype and any other social media venue we can be "together" and not be "together".  We live in an era where rarely does anyone write a real letter anymore, that we sit on the couch or chair and have a real conversation on a phone that is tied to the wall.  Everything has become instantaneous and I wonder does that include the relationships many may have?

Either way I will put myself on the line as they say, "I am now looking to build more dynamic, deeper, meaningful friendships"-----  just let me know if your interested.