You've Got a Friend (Request) in Me

While I am eternally grateful for facebook, I can't help but think about how this tool has manipulated the way in which we think.  There are people out there that have over 1000 friends.  Over 1000 friends?  If I wrote down the names of everyone I've known my whole life I doubt I'd get to 1000.  This person doesn't have 1000 friends.  They have 1000 people that they clicked "send friend request" for.  They obviously don't have the same definition of friend that many of us have.  I don't have many friends.  That is something that I am working on.  Being more social and maintaining relationships with people.  Mostly I'm focusing on tangible people.  Not that I want to literally touch the people.  That would be weird.  I just find that I am much more able to make friends and meet people when I'm on the inter-web.  Having friends in real life is much harder than that.  You have to make an effort to stay in touch.  Its super easy to be friends with someone who is always at your fingertips and just a click away.  Its harder to set up a time to meet and have lunch and chat for an hour or so.  Number one - you have to get dressed.  This can be challenging for those of us with depression.  Number two - you have to fit it in their schedule because if you are a person with depression and anxiety who doesn't leave the house too much, your schedule is pretty open.  Number three - you have to psych yourself up when the times comes and not find a reason to back out which is super easy to do.  If you're depressed and anxious, you have a million excuses at hand.  Number four - you have to maintain a lively conversation.  You have to make enough eye contact but not too much.  You have to think up witty interesting topics.  You have to endure the periodic silences where other people, normal people, would not even notice but where you sit and wonder why you are such a social freak.  And last but not least Number five - you go home and feel triumphant for about half an hour till you start to think about the lunch and wonder if the other person could tell you went through Numbers one through four.  Its kind of like the stress most people associate with dating only you're not dating, you're just having lunch with a friend.  That is what it is like when you have depression and an anxiety disorder.  I'm hoping this doesn't freak out any of the friends that I DO have lunch and coffee with but only serve to help everyone understand how hard it is for us to do these "normal" things.  That is why most of us retreat to our cyber-haven and seek out "friendships" there.  Some of them DO turn into actual friendships that last for years and through much more than most physical friends would weather with you.  But all too often we end up deleted from someone's friend list with no explanation leaving us wondering yet again - what is wrong with us.