To Friend or Not to Friend . . .

I have been marveling over the shrinking of the world for at least a few months now. The number of people on the planet is growing but somehow the size of the planet seems to be smaller all the time. People who had disappeared from my life for decades reappear in a second, as if they never left. Conversations that were interrupted twenty years ago can continue as if one of the participants just left for a few minutes to go to the ladies’ room. Photos that we took in our teens pop up on our computer screens like instant messages. And for the most part, it’s all good. Sometimes we exchange a few e-mails and call it a day. Sometimes we find that we really missed our old friends and we readmit them into our lives. Mostly, I think, we, or at least, I, feel connected to my whole life all at once, but interact with many of those old friends mainly out of nostalgia, and possibly a desire to feel young again.

But there is a flip side to all of this instant connecting. Recently I sent a friend request on Facebook to my first friend. This woman came to the states as a toddler; her parents arrived here around the same time that mine did, and I was born a few months later. I have pictures of the two of us in our pink party dresses at each other’s birthday parties, and with all sorts of unrecognizable adults lined up with their closed-mouthed, poor European dentition smiles. 

This girl, I’ll call her Gaby for convenience although it’s not her real name, grew up in my neighborhood, went to my elementary school and then my high school. We did not stay close after our parents stopped forcing us together, but, as far as I know, we never had any major conflicts or disagreements. Eventually she became the type of person I’d say hi to in the hallway - not a friend, but not an enemy. I haven't thought of her in years.

Enter the internet, and Facebook. Another childhood friend sent me a friend “suggestion” - that I add Gaby to my friend list. Wow, I thought, I haven’t heard of her or even thought of her in ages. I was curious to find out how her life had turned out. I sent her my friend request, with a little message. Nothing. She disappeared from my list. So, naively, I sent another request, assuming a system malfunction. Again, she apparently ignored me. 

I should have laughed off this incident, but instead, I got mad. I googled Gaby but the information was scant - more or less what my parents already knew from bumping into her parents every few years. I began to worry. Had I inadvertently offended Gaby? Had I done something back in high school which she never forgave? (not that I had any memory of such a thing). Did I have the proverbial cooties?

I’ll probably never know, but Freud did his own self-analysis and I’m going to do mine too. I did not do anything to offend my first friend - and while I have no clear memory of the birthday parties with the pink frilly dresses, I do have the photos, and I still treasure them because they are all I have of those early days - before I could speak English, before I had a sister, before I ever began my formal education and before the layers of school, society, friends, family, travel, work, and emotional challenges ever began to turn me into the person I am today. So I have decided that I actually feel a bit of pity for Gaby - pity that she has no connection to those early days, or any nostalgia for a time in her life that was not hers to control, but during which she - and I - were the darlings of a group of young immigrants. I have always felt a deep connection to my roots - not just to my parents and grandparents but to all the generations going back through Spain and Persia to ancient Israel and Egypt and back into the land of Ur. I love being part of a history, and trying to make a little mark that can live on. I am lucky enough to have three amazing sons who will pass on my legacy; I try to write and publish both fiction and non-fiction so that part of me will live on. Grandiose? Maybe, but I’m hardly alone in wishing for some sort of permanence, connection, and immortality. Gaby apparently is uninterested in either her roots or her immediate past. Too bad. In psychiatry to know a person’s history is to know a person. When people ask me how I can know so much about someone in a ninety-minute interview, I point them to the list entitled: “Sources of Information.” The interview is only a small part - it is the person’s history - his c.v., curriculum vita - which explains all of the details leading to the ninety-minute interview and resulting in my clinical impressions.

If Gaby changes her mind and decides to “friend” me, I hold no grudge. I am curious about the lives of other people - without this innate curiosity I could not do what I do for a living. If she chooses to remain distant, that is her prerogative. I certainly don’t need her in my life - but for someone like me, who does what I do for a living, the absence of information is sometimes more informative than any clinical interview could ever be.