For a person that others call friendly and sociable, my phone sure is so damn quiet.
It can go days on end without a single call from anyone other than my immediate family and "loved ones". I'm starting to suspect I have no life.
Long time ago, I made a choice that when it came to friends, there are only so many people that can make up your life. You can't be friends with everybody plus not everyone is actually worth getting to know. "Friends are the biggest suckers in your life" someone said to me. While I don't believe that entirely, there is some truth to it. So I thought "Hey, a few genuine and deep friendships is enough." I did not and still do not want a broad but shallow circle of friends.
What's the point of knowing many people and having many people know you? Only to discover that many of them hardly know anything about you? We are all complex beings and you can spend years of your life getting to know someone and still find new things about them. So I devoted myself to selecting a few choice friends, people whom I could relate to, people I could talk, debate, reason, argue, console, consult and joke with but mostly people whom I think were also genuine towards me. And I can tell you, genuine-ness in friendships are hard to find. I shied away from the popularity game of adding as many people as possible on Facebook or attending parties with 2 dozen people you couldn't care less about vice versa.
In fact, I did this so well, I suddenly find my phone deafeningly quiet. Damn, I REALLY HAVE NO LIFE. So why am I complaining about my phone being quiet? Alone times like this gives me time to sit down, reflect, contemplate and blog, crystallizing all the vague and fuzzy thoughts in my head. Putting them slowly in words, then sentences, then paragraphs and reading them back helps me clear my head (and realize what a buffoon I can be when reading older post).
A bit of alone time helps with that.
And still, I stare at my silent phone wondering why no one seems to be thinking of me. Why no one has given me a call asking how am I or if I'd like to go out for a drink. Shit, that sounded so needy and whimpy. I guess the truth is this regardless of whether we try having a few deep friendships or a broad but shallow group, we all want to feel that we matter to someone other than ourselves. I'd be happy if I earned more money, I'd be happy if I drove a bigger car or bought that latest DSLR I've been drooling after, but only while the euphoria lasted, then there would be emptiness again.
But I would be truly happy deep down into the deepest pits of my heart, if I received a simple call / text from someone with a simple "Hello, how are you? "Been thinking of you." "Haven't seen you in a while, Lets do lunch?" That to me, is priceless...
It does happen but I guess not as often as I'd hope for.
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