Where Are Your Real Friends?

I was watching television today when I saw a commercial for some kind of automobile. I can't remember the brand but I do remember the content of the commercial. Seems a young woman had convinced her parents after much effort to join the Facebook Generation and they had finally achieved a handful of Facebook Friends. Not nearly as many as she had but in her mind a good start. So there she sat staring into a computer screen making postings on her "friends" Facebook pages and developing an electronic circle of friends. Then the commercial cuts away to the parents. Where are they? Not in front of a computer screen but actually interacting with a group of eight or ten real living and breathing people in the countryside somewhere laughing and apparently enjoining themselves. I thought, "That's about they way it is these days." Too many people making electronic connections and too few making connections with real living and breathing people.

Now don't misunderstand me. I am about as involved in the electronic social media as anyone as evidenced by the fact that I am writing this Blog or even know what a blog is. In fact, it has allowed me to reconnect with friends from long ago. It has brought people I went to public school with back into my life after 40 years or more and it has allowed me to keep up with friends around the globe. In fact, it is almost the perfect tool for that and I intend to use it to the maximum. What I don't intend to allow it to become is a substitute for "real" friends

I grant you that some of the people of my Facebook, Linkedin, , STIK, PLAXO , SKYPE and other social media sites are in fact my personal friends with whom I actually have a real life relationship and with whom interact regularly face to face. However, having said that, I must confess that most of the people on those sites are more of acquaintances and business connections than person friends

The truth is maintaining a personal relationship of any depth with another human being is not an easy thing to do. Electronic relationships are easy and require little or no effort. I can manage easily my large electronic family using my CRM software and Facebook. Face-to-face real life personal relationships can be a bit more challenging. However, they are worth the effort required to maintain them

If my car breaks down and I need someone to come and get me I call a real friend and they physically drive over and give me a free ride home during which we have interesting conversation and our relationship is strengthened (even when they remind me that I should have got the car repaired before in quit running). They also invite me to join them in a real place for a tailgate party where we interact in a non-electronic way. What I am trying to say and doing such a poor job of doing is that electronic media is a tool and not a relationship.

I saw on a science channel the other day that in the next 25 years we will have robots that think like people and will interact with people as equals. Well, news flash . . . I don't want to interact as an equal with a machine. I want to interact with people and I want the machine to remain a tool used by humans and not become a substitute for them.

So my electronic and actual friends, here's my point: Use social media as a tool that can bring some value to your real friendships and not as a substitute for real friendships. Interact with your friends electronically but also interact with your friends physically and emotionally as well. Used correctly social media can be a useful tool in holding families that are geographically scattered together.

However, it is time to get up from you computer, put down your smart phone, lay aside you i-pad and get out there . . . get into the action. Go fishing with your kids; take in a movie with your wife; have a group of friends over for dinner at your home; take a family vacation (give me a call on this one . . . I can help); try and old fashioned picnic or barbecue at a park somewhere: just find some things to do with real people in a real place. Oh yea, you can effectively USE social media to arrange some of this.

Case in point . . . last year my High School graduating class had it's 45th reunion. Much of the planing we did was done via social media. This was especially true for locating folks and keeping folks up-to-date as plans were developed. However, it also involved face-to-face meeting where we could interact directly as people. Between these the person-to-person meetings have become a part of my treasure trove of memories while I have pretty much forgotten all the electronic efforts.

The reunion, was a success but is now also assigned to my trove of memories and I now keep "in touch" with many of my high school classmates via electronic media. But I must confess that as much as I like keeping in touch, I believe it is more important to be able to reach out and actually touch. We need to hear each other's voices and see each other's faces and to share our lives. Maybe that's why I am already looking forward to our 50th reunion when I can see these people face-to-face and old acquaintances renew.

Besides, when I come to the end on my life's journey I don't want my funeral service attended via electronic media (i.e., SKYPE) nor do I want my wife and children comforted via their Facebook accounts. To be sure those are OK for my many casual acquaintances and business connections but I want a real person putting real arms around my family and saying, "I am here and I care." I have a notion these will be the people with whom I have had a real life face-to-face personal relationship.

What do you think?