In this day and age one of the most rare things in our culture is deep freindships, it is a commodity in recession. Every statistic shows that friendships (not Facebook ones) are hard to find and even harder to maintain.
Here are some stats:
-Average American have 2 close friends down from 3 twenty five years ago
-25% have no one to confide in
-80% only talk to family
-Having friends over to your house is down 45%
Pastor Marc Driscoll writes this about his neighborhood and the difficulty of finding friends there:
And what I see in my neighborhood, it’s weird. Every time somebody puts their house up for sale, all of the neighbors go to the open house. They have no intention of buying the home. They’ve just never been in the home and they’re curious. So, they just go to the open house.
We actually opened our home and did a party a few years ago. We invited all the neighbors and they were totally freaked out. I had people ask me, “Why? Why do you want me to come over?” Like, “I’m gonna kill you, and eat you, and put part of you in the fridge.” I had one guy, “Like, are you a Jehovah’s witness?” I’m like, “No.”
Another guy, “Do you sell Amway?” I’m like, “No, I don’t sell Amway.”
“Just shut up and come over or don’t.” They were like “You wanna talk to me. Why? What did I do?” “You didn’t do anything. You can come over to my house. I’ll give you chicken wings and we could be friends, maybe.”
There is nothing more valuable than friends. I have found that out this year. I have felt the pain of broken friendships and enjoyed the comfort and love of friends who cared for me more than I knew. I have also discovered new friends in the fray of life, some from the most unexpected places. I encourage you to invest in your friendships, treasure them and seek to be the type of friend that you want to have.
"Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire?" C. S. Lewis
I'm actually pretty shocked by all of these, especially considering that the majority of people are SUPPOSED to be Extroverts, who are supposed to get all jazzed up about meeting and being around people.
I'm not in that majority, but it's crazy.
I'd love to actually be able to figure out truly what all these "outgoing" folks are doing that these numbers are true.
Heck, maybe that's why a ton of people are down these days, they're Extroverts not acting like it. As opposed to little ol' me, who has a darn good time when the wallflower take the stage (sometimes admittedly to make things interesting for the people that don't get it) before retreating to the "Table, Party of One!" and actually okay with that... guests are always invited.
I know I'm a friend in writing, but hopefully a meaningful one as you still are these years later. You're definitely missed.
Posted by: Alexander Wilhelmsen | May 23, 2013 at 08:48 PM