All My Rowdy Friendsters Stayed At Home Tonight

"Define 'friend'."

The best advice I ever gave myself and, sensing that I was talking down to myself, advice I've yet to take. What, in this life that I have, seems to be the defining thing that bonds me to anyone else? I mean REALLY....

Is it time? Have we simply spent enough time together? Do we look forward to the looks, the sighs, the turns of phrase - are we used to the smells?

Is it suffering? Is my suffering like someone else's so much that I feel a kinship?

Is it joy? Do we find the same things funny, does the same stuff charge the battery?

Is it ambition? Do we reach for the same things with an implicit agreement to allow each other some degree of bullshit because we sense what we're after?

Is it a fever? Are we crazed in ways that compliment each other?

Is it questioning? Do we worry about the same stuff, unsatisfied by the same answers?

Is it that we know each other, warts and all, and still choose to hang around? Do our weaknesses make the other feel better about themselves or is it a duality of pure strength?

Parasite to host? Chocolate to cream? Oxygen Oxygen Hydrogen? Sour mash? Reason to passion? Hug to fencepost?

Is it an idea or is it real? Tangible? Communicable?

Living new in New York City will elevate these questions from navel gazing to matters of supreme urgency as you adjust your mind and struggle to stay connected. There are plenty of people around who can act friend-like and, although not meaning to, will zap the soul of its juices. Maybe it's just that they spend most of their time around other friend-like people. Me and everyone else here wants to be known by another, to reveal. Who doesn't? But many already have their fill of friends and can't afford the time and space. Dreams are dashed quicker and with more regularity than the stops of the F Train, which threaten at every second to carry the familiar faces on to their greater destinies. It's terrifying to let yourself care, yet you want to recognize the people you see everyday, to let them know you see and appreciate. To offer them a sliver of what you would, if things were different, maybe give them in whole: this, I think, is being friend-like. It's a beautiful gesture for your fellow traveler, but that doesn't mean it is enough.

I spent my birthday with two friends. I know this about one of them for sure, the other I believe to be as we get to know each other. Across the Village, some new friends were tearing up some Karaoke with an extended group of their friends. On my cell phone I kept getting calls about "my birthday party" that was raging. "Where are you? Everybody's here!" "We rented a big room for your party, dude!" "We came to see you where are you?" Those that called had to shout over the voices of the rest of the group. I intitally had said I wanted to go, but something was stopping me.

I would have relished having those who called me hanging with my assembled threesome, but my friend Bob wasn't interested in Karaoke and more importantly, I knew that if I showed up I would have been treated excellently, but that the group was not really gathered in my honor. If we went we would have been exposed to a room of friend-like people along with the genuines, and thinking "a bird in the hand", I was not willing to take the risk. On this birthday, "one-year wiser" meant recognizing the difference and respecting it. In the presence of the real thing, I wasn't interested in having the sanctity of my B day co-oped by a single "friend-like" soul.

On "friendster" everyone fills in the blanks about themselves, asks for friends and in some cases are sought out to be someone's friend. It is as simple as asking permission and clicking a mouse. In seconds you have a virtual record of your "friendsters", complete with photos and endearing information. It is an experience that I enjoy (currently not registered) but it speaks nothing to the real responsibility of friendship. Are we in danger? Are we losing something?

Maybe only if we don't define our terms.

"Friendster" and "friend-like". I'm straight as long as I know the difference. I'll be your "friendster" for sure.
I might be friend-like. Maybe that's enough for you. Maybe not. We don't have to define the word the same way to enjoy a symbiotic bond. Again, the point is not to navel gaze here - it is to stay connected or reconnect. I don't really care to chase down a quintissestial definition of the word. Just to ask if I'm doing alright and to consider and celebrate the "elements of me and you" (Wood).

Ray