A guy I know, recently had eighty-four (84) people post on his Facebook timeline for his birthday. Incredulous, I mentioned to a co-worker that I wasn't certain that many people would attend my funeral or wedding, whichever comes first. To put it in perspective, I think I had a mere sixteen (16), post on my timeline for my birthday, many of which I hadn't seen in this calendar year.
It kind of became a thing with me, a yardstick to measure my supposed failure. Finally another co-worker, probably exasperated with hearing about it again for the 3rd or 4th time, said, "Jill, c'mon Facebook friends aren't real friends anyway, I mean who has personal contact with 84 people continuously!"
I thought about it still further sitting around a high top table with my work colleagues the other night, having drinks for the first time in so many months. It felt good sitting with my tribe, looking around at their faces, these people who probably know me as well as my own family. They see me at my best and they see me at my worst and as the saying goes, "know where all the bodies are buried."
They who know that behind the kind façade is the Jill that isn't so sweet, who is shrill when someone jams the copier again or swears revenge on the unfortunate soul who dropped the call she was waiting for, they've heard my angry voice reverberate down the hall when a rep dropped the ball on an case I'm working on. They know that while I'm usually the mild mannered Bruce Banner, I can quickly turn into the Hulk when provoked.
It occurred to me that none of these people are Facebook Friends. The people who know me best, who know what I'm like when I've had a few drinks, or how awful I look when I'm sick are not my social media friends.
I pondered...friends and communication.
Communication in this wired age is so different than the world in which I grew up. Friends were real people who you went to school with, who lived in your neighborhood, who knew your siblings. They weren't this nebulous group of people who meet you at a watering hole or a class and three (3) hours later, you get a invite to 'friend' them.
In the world I grew up in, your friends were the gatekeepers, your pre-work colleagues. They knew you because you spent time with them, countless hours talking on the phone, shopping at the mall on the weekends, roller skating, you lived in and out of each others' houses and lives. If you wanted to initiate contact with the opposite sex, for instance, you wouldn't think of doing it without your friends' direct involvement. As in, "you know that guy I like, Jeff M, y'know the one who has hair like Andre Agassi (a mullet) "... to which your friend, if they were any kind of friend would reply, "oh yeah his sister is in my 5th period Bio class, I'll slip her a note and see if he likes you..." which was the perfect opening to communication the way I grew up with it.
The note.
The all-important, intricately folded, heart-dotted i's, doodled on, stickered, SWAK'ed note. Any self-respecting Gen X'er knows all about the crucial importance of the note. We didn't have cell phones, social media or texting, heck, most of didn't even have pagers at that point. The note was critical. It served as your entrée into whatever social clique you inhabited, it functioned as invitation (to the all important sleepover or party), an IOU (hey I'll hit you back for the .50 you loaned me for that Coke Classic), promissory note (you still have my purple sweater that I wanted to wear to the 7th grade dance on Friday), and was the matchmaker of its time. You couldn't function in society without it.
Yet, the note was not without it peculiar rituals. For instance, there was an art to the folding of the note. Unless you were some kind of philistine, you never merely folded it into a square package. No indeed, there were intricate geometrical patterns to fashion and then there was the all important tuck, so that the receiver would need to use a little ingenuity to unwrap the note and glean its contents.
In the same manner the passing of the note was not without its particular shibboleths and rules. There was 'the palm' where the note was folded tiny enough to fit in one's palms and was surreptitiously passed from hand to hand under the cover of desk until finally it was slapped home into the waiting palm of the receiver. There was the "yawn and throw", this one required some acting ability, good aim and the blessing of providence. In this one, the note passer feigned a huge yawn stretching his or her arms above their head with the note 'palmed' and with arms outstretched over his head, he dropped (threw) the note at the feet of the intended receiver. Probably the easiest, safest and least likely to get you disciplinary action was the "locker insert". It's just like it sounds, the note passer happened by the locker of the recipient and after a cursory look to the right and to the left to ensure he/she wasn't being observed, took the note and slipped it into the locker via the air vents on the locker door. The one caveat with this one, was the compulsory check with the receiver, as in, "did you get the note I slipped in your locker?" You prayed for the nodding head and dreaded the vacant stare where the receiver in his/her haste to grab his lab manual, doesn't see said note and it drops unnoticed to the ground to become the general property and gossip of whomever happened to spy it laying there and picks it up.
I always half expect someday to happen upon a TV documentary about Gen X, where some Richard Attenborough type stares into a camera and holds up a folded piece of loose-leaf notepaper, so old that the blue lines and writing are hard to make out, folded into a rectangle with a triangular shape flap, saying,
"Note how some of the letters are bubble-shaped and have polka-dot serifs at the ends, clearly this was some sort of tribal ritual meant to enhance one's social status. This missive appears to be some kind of census-like instrument. Three lines that say, "Do you like Jeff M? with a box for yes and a box for no. If, yes, will you go with Jeff to the dance in the gym on Friday? Note again the boxes for yes or no. Finally, we come to, Can I borrow your Guess sweater? There again two boxes with yes or no responses. Clearly these questions had great social import for the receiver!"
"More curious still is that all the I's are dotted with little hearts, clearly some sort of 20th century cuneiform indicating the level of affection from the writer to the receiver... Our researchers have yet to puzzle out the meaning of a few words that are utilized quite frequently. For instance, the abundant use of the word 'killer' when we could not discern any clear nefarious intent. The writer also frequently uses the injunction 'totally'. We wondered if this was a political reference but discovered that her government was still very democratic at this point. Clearly in this age, one's brand of legwear and sweater were a very important indication of their social standing..."
Sitting here in my mid 40's it all seems somewhat unreal, our mode of communication. Although, to me, nothing matched the excitement of receiving that folded piece of paper, wondering what it might contain. Unlike text messages, it was tangible, you could run your hands across it and yes, if Jeff M did confess his undying love (or as much love as a 15 year old was capable of) for you, slip it under your pillow, empirical proof that someone cared, that you were desired.
Yep, I miss the note. I miss the heart dotted i's, the stickers, the SWAK on the outside. I miss the innocence, the fact that we wrote in sentences with punctuation (albeit a little heavy on the exclamation point) that you could express yourself without typing and that we really did write.
One thing stays true though, despite the mode of communication, your friends are important, whether they are work friends or someone you've known since the 10th grade. Cherish them, and hey maybe for old times sake, grab a piece of notebook paper from your kids (I guess they still use it?) and drop them a note...
It'd be totally killer...
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