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2008,
18:41 GMT
Hal Needs New Friends Event—Final Thoughts
Posted by Hal
So thanks to everyone who took the trouble to comment on the previous post which tells the sort of sad tale of my Hal Needs New Friends Night (long story short – one person showed up).
Since that night I’ve been communicating with the people who said they were coming or maybe coming and didn’t show, and otherwise talking to people about the event and asking them what they think happened. From all this discussion as well as from the comments posted to the blog, I’ve settled on three main interlocking reasons for why (leaving out for now the possibility of my general lameness) no one showed up.
First, people say they’ll come or say maybe they’ll come but they don’t feel any actual obligation to attend – “definitely attending” on Facebook seems to mean “maybe” and “maybe attending” seems to mean probably not though I like the idea of attending, just not the actual process of having to go through the tiresome ordeal of showing up somewhere. Writes one of the “Maybes”: “Hi Hal, It’s funny because I often say ‘maybe’ I’ll come to things when I can’t come. I’d have liked to come to meet you but I live in BC. Saying I’m not coming always seems so final…So I usually say Maybe.” Another person who said they were definitely coming wrote me to say they were going to come but they live an hour’s drive away add “gas…you know.” Now obviously if you can’t afford the gas, I understand that, but it’s not as if the price of gasoline changed so dramatically in the week between that person said she was coming and the day of the actual event. So I’ll chalk it up to the “probably not but there’s a slight chance I’ll be around maybe” unique to the world of Facebook.
The second thing I realized: people are busy. They barely have time for their old friends, let alone time to make new ones. They’ve got jobs, hobbies, things to do, places to go. Life gets in the way. One “maybe” told me that instead of coming out she played Wig and smoked a joint at her boyfriend’s friend’s place. She made it sound way more exciting than anything I could have ever come up with: “We smoked some killer weed…then the games began. I virtually bowled, boxed my man (and won) played a Lego version of Indiana Jones, walked a tightrope. It was pretty nifty.” A fellow had a job interview the next morning. Another “maybe” was going to come but decided against it because she had to work in the morning. Another maybe ended up having ultimate Frisbee night and a confirmed attendee bailed out to go, of all things, to the George Michael concert. (Can’t compete with that…I guess.) A “maybe” spent his evening returning tiles he bought for his basement that his wife nixed as too expensive: “So, I had to haul back 25 boxes of heavy tiles, bring down to the basement, one box at a time, and carry back the other boxes of tiles which were already in the basement, load them up in the car, drive to Home Depot and get my money back.” We’re so busy working and scheduling and renovating (both our virtual and cyber properties) we barely have time to breath, let alone make new friends. I think it’s fair to argue that many people are stressed and tired and constantly on the go – our society does not reward leisure and does not encourage us to make time to meet new people in our community.
Finally, and this is certainly related to the other two phenomenon, there’s the question of social anxiety and awkwardness. Just as my one friend Paula almost didn’t come because she felt weird walking into a bar alone to meet a stranger, several people reported that they intended to come but in the end just couldn’t muster up the courage. Writes a “maybe”: “I wanted to go, and had plans to attend with my friend. When she bailed, I didn’t have enough confidence to go on my own. Sad but true. I can and do travel alone, go to movies and restaurants alone, attend literary and gallery events, and do a myriad of other things alone. But going to a bar alone to meet a stranger who obviously already has a terribly fascinating cabal of friends I just didn’t feel I had the social stamina for.” Extrapolate from this kind of comment and you could make the argument that people are, in fact, more likely to attend an “event” they are invited to via Facebook then accept an invitation to a personal encounter. An event is anonymous. You don’t commit, you don’t extend yourself, don’t feel like there’s someone on the other end judging you. An event, like a night at home watching tv or surfing other people’s pages, is far less of a trial than a non-event involving actually having to meet and engage with other people in real life. The more disengaged we are, the more comfortable we feel. This is, surely, one of the consequences of Peep culture. Or you could flip it around and put it this way: The more we learn to “engage” with each other through mediated environments, the less comfortable we are just meeting up. “Meeting you would make you ‘real’,” noted a perceptive comment posted on this blog. “They would have an emotional connection which brings in all that emotional baggage like guilt (for not following Twitter, skipping your blog a few times, etc.).” In other words, it’s far less complicated to peep from a distance. In other words, all this social media might actually create distance and a reluctant to meet than a desire to meet.
In the end, people were generally mortified for me. Several expressed true repentance, at least two people sent me their phone numbers and told me I should call them if I still wanted to hang out, and many people promised (albeit vaguely) to buy me a beer when and if our paths crossed in the future. Everyone felt if not sorry for me, then sorry for how the night turned out and for their role in being one of those people just a little too busy, too distant, too unsure, to attend. People are kind and caring (from a distance). It’s just that life, the way our lives are structured and organized, gets in the way.
There are -4- Comments: , Add yours…
13:41
Another possible reason? The peepers don’t want to get peeped! As you made it into a social experiment that would, undoubtedly, be documented in your blog (and, indeed, is!), people might have been scared off by that added pressure. Paula was indeed brave, and now she’s also a bit of an internet celebrity for having been the sole attendee. Maybe if more people had come, it would have actually been less intimidating for all, but as you mentioned, Facebook is notoriously unreliable for giving an estimated attendance figure. Just my two cents. (P.S. One of the people I invited to attend in my place actually ended up coming to Montreal for the weekend, doh!)
13:41
I was looking you up to see how it went…and now I see. I hate to say that I’m not surprised and that has nothing to do with you personally, Hal. I observe this same thing happening in my world. My theory is that people will no longer entertain the idea of putting a negative into the world that originated from them. Rarely do I hear a plain “no, thank you” in my day-to-day. A negative is always wrapped in some pleasantifying wrapper intended to leave the recipient with warm fuzzies in relation to the giver. I mean, who ever gives a poor reference when a terrible employee’s potential next boss calls up? Nope, always find something nice to say to disguise the fact that you’re not saying something pleasant. I believe this goes beyond being polite. It may even stem from the relatively recent up-with-self-esteem phenomenon in child-rearing. All good stuff on a grand scale but also leaves no room for honest, negative feedback. It’s as if we’ll all wilt into oblivion if we hear something we don’t want to hear. Or that those with negative thoughts will wilt from possessing them. Silliness! All this may even delay and intensify the sting.
How I wish I could have hopped a plane that night, just to prove that not everyone is a well-intentioned schmuck. I was thinking of you! I mean what I promise and I show up when I say I’ll show up. Simple. I assume people are counting on me (though that’s another post entirely). And now, tonight, I’m off to find a date for an extra ticket I’m stuck with after a friend “definitely was in.” Oi.
13:41
This is going to sound wrong but, Paula does not need new friends: soccer teammates, running buddies, current and former co-workers, bookclub chums, and boyfriend. As I made my way over to the Rhino last Thursday night, I had to ask myself, “Why am I investing this precious, free time to potentially connect with someone else?”
But I am curious about people. And, I was curious to know <span class=“caps”>WHY</span> Hal – this cultural commentator whose words and ideas I respect and admire – why HE would need new friends. And why isn’t our FaceBook friendship enough?
Maybe, I thought, Hal is a brooding intellectual who can ignite peoples’s thoughts so powerfully through his writing, but in person, is alienating and changeable. Did he think that by soliciting friendship in this way, he’d find some drinking buddies not yet sick of his potentially morose character?
Besides, despite my respect and admiration for his writing, can you really know a person through their authorship alone? I decided that even if friendship did not result, a better insight into Hal, the person, might.
From the brief visit we had, I can tell you Hal does not come across broodingly. He’s got that sardonic wit, sure, but he’s animated and energetic. Further, he’s honest and forthcoming.
Hmmm… ya, so those are not alienating and changeable qualities. Those are qualities which I look for in a friend. And, let’s – ahem – face it, I wouldn’t know some of this stuff about Hal if we only remained friends on FaceBook.
What’s exposed beyond the digital facade? FaceBook: where we invite people into the foyers of our safe, digital homes. But what is so private, secret, uneditable about our real lives that we keep dawning that face that we keep in the jar by the FB door, scared to step a foot outside into real life?
As the one person who did show up last Thurs, I don’t in anyway mean for this to come across as sanctimonious. In keeping with the spirit of the experiment, I too am curious about how we connect as people, and why we might chose to do so through digital means alone.
I applaud Hal’s openness, and despite my full roster of friends (and by friends, I mean people who I physically see and interact with regularly), I’d like to make room for Hal. Will we be able to cultivate a friendship with our lives as busy and disparate as they are? Who knows. But I would be doing the potential a disservice if we lingered in the FB foyer never to tread into the exposing light of day.
13:41
Hal, I heard you speak recently about how social media helps us all feel as though we are celebrities, complete with an army of papparazzi (friends, twitter friends, blog readers…) who are fascinated by our everyday activities.
“Right now I’m brushing my teeth wearing a bathrobe…”
In some ways, I think saying “maybe!” to a social event is another part of the celebrity lifestyles we want. Having a few “maybe!” commitments each night of the week helps us feel in-demand and popular.
It’s classic celebrity culture: vanity, insincerity, narcissism
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
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