Friends

This past weekend was a pretty good weekend for me to catch up with friends. As much as I enjoy doing things with other people it can sometimes be a bit of overload for me which causes me to retreat into my own little world.

On Saturday I was able to get together with a friend who has been in town for business. She and I first met about 7 years ago due to the job that I have now. And amazingly she and I have been able to see each other a couple of times a year in spite of living in different states. Recently she received a job promotion which gave us even more reason to celebrate being able to see one another!

On Sunday morning I met up with my 3-Day walking team for breakfast after their training walk. (And yes, I probably should have met them for the training walk!) It was good to see all of their excitement about the upcoming Dallas/Ft. Worth 3-Day walk this weekend. Although I decided not to walk Dallas this year, I will be out there cheering them on each step of the way (also known as a Walker Stalker!).

After that one of the ladies and I went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few items that I needed for my Walker Stalking duties. From there, I kind of invited myself to go to a soccer game with her. Even though it was a bit windy and cool we had a good time catching up. From there we ended up at lunch and met two 3-Day walkers sitting at the table next to us!

And my Sunday ended with calling another friend to gossip about something that I saw on Facebook! (Facebook can be good for something I guess) And I always say that men gossip more than women do since he already knew the back story on what I was calling him about!

What I realized this weekend is that I have a pretty eclectic group of friends. I honestly don’t know how well they would ‘mix’ with one another since we all have become friends from different situations. All I can say that I am pretty lucky to have a great group of friends!

Friends, How Many of Us Have Them?

So…

How many Facebook friends do you have?

How many Tweeps?

Some of you might remember that a couple of months ago I read the book ‘MWF Seeking BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Best Friend. Ever since then I having been giving more thought to the dynamics of friendships and the type of relationships that I have with my friends.

Honestly, I think the term ‘friend’ is probably used a bit loosely nowadays. On Facebook, I have 380 ‘friends’. My ‘friends’ are a mix of family, work friends, real life friends, PINK friends, high school friends, and virtual friends. Within each of these sub groups are varying degrees of how close I am to each person in the specific group. For instance in my family group I have my immediate family, aunts, uncles and cousins, and then distant relatives.

When I first joined Facebook, I was very selective about who I accepted friend requests from. My sister would call me a Facebook Snob, and it was true. If I knew of someone in high school and we didn’t talk then, why would I want to be their Facebook friend 25 years later? Now I have loosened my friend requirements since I primarily use Facebook as marketing for my 3-Day Breast Cancer Walks. For the most part there aren’t any personal pictures of me or other friends, unless it’s something to do with me volunteering, training and walking in breast cancer awareness event. Every now and then I will allow someone to tag me in a picture (and I still reserve the final approval for that!).

As for Twitter…

I have 86 followers, which isn’t anything by Twitter follower standards. The main reason I joined Twitter was due to the 3-Day having a Twitter account (@the3day). This allowed me to follow each of the 14 3-Day walks, virtually cheer on the walkers and crew, and become more involved in the 3-Day community. And yes, I have a lot of Tweeps that I have no idea who they are, yet I feel like I know them in the virtual sense.

And then there are the blogs that I follow. Even though I follow over 70 blogs (I know, waaay too many!), there are only a handful that I look forward to reading on a daily basis. I feel like those bloggers are my ‘friends’ and I can’t wait to see what they will share next. (Maybe one day I’ll have hundreds of people following my blog too!)

Although I was kind of hard on the author of ‘MWF Seeking BFF’ with my initial thoughts, and what I thought was her pathetic and controlling search for a new BFF, the book helped me realize that I possibly take for granted my ‘meeting people’ skills (as she calls it). I guess some people have ‘it’ and some people don’t. For me, meeting people in person or via social media hasn’t been that difficult for me to do. I’ll just consider myself thankful and lucky for all of the ‘friends’ that I have!

Tribute to a Friend

Last week ended with unexpected news of a friend's untimely death. My friend is someone that I know through my company, and that I maintain contact with via Facebook and Four Square. It wasn't until several months ago that I learned that he is best friends with another person that I have recently become good friends with.

My friend made the decision to take his own life.

What I struggle with is that everything is not always as it seems in someones life. In order for him to have done this, he must have been hurting inside very much. Whenever I saw him, he always had a big smile on his face and could always make me laugh. And from the many pictures that have appeared on his Facebook page, this is a similar memory that many people shared with him. Within the past year he moved to a state that he loved (what's not to love about Colorado?), purchased a new car, and had recently shared with me the excitement and nervousness that he had about meeting someone during an upcoming trip to Florida.

I still remember how he and I met. We were both on a work assignment in Ohio after Hurricane Ike moved its way across the country. After initially meeting, his name sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't figure out why. All I knew was that he would stop by to chat when he could, always had a smile for me, and made me laugh. He was a genuine person with a kind spirit. It wasn't until I had a long weekend off and traveled home that I finally realized why his name was familiar to me: he and I had written stories for a book published by our company entitled "Our Stories", which is a collection of stories by members of the LGBT community and their allies. I had submitted a story about my best friend and when he came out to me; my friend had submitted a story about his coming out.

I may never know the reason my friend took his life. Instead I'm just thankful for the time that I knew him and the impact that he made on my life.

You Wanna Do What?

Since 2009 I have been walking in the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure. And since that time all of my family and friends have probably heard a lot more about ‘The Walk’ than they have wanted to.  This year I have been blown away that a few of my friends have approached me about walking this year!

I know it might not sound like a big deal, but to me it is. The 3 Day has become so important to me for a few reasons. One, the awareness that the event creates is just amazing, and early detection is key with curing breast cancer. The 3 Day has also made me feel connected to something. When I moved to Dallas, I only knew a few people and I wasn’t involved in community events like I had been before making my current career choice.  I now have this amazing PINK family and my circle of friends grows through it.

I think I am even more amazed that somehow I have influenced my friends to want to be a part of the 3 Day. I do my best to tell them the good, the bad and the ugly about the event in order for them to make an informed decision. And to be honest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided to walk my first year. All I knew is that once I had walked my last step into Closing Ceremony that I would be back again the following year. It certainly helped me to join a team that had members who had previously walked the event to answer all of my questions (and I had a lot of questions!).

One friend, A, did walk with me last year. Overall I think she was amazed by the event itself, yet she’ll probably admit that she could have trained a bit more than she did. I do my best to let my friends know that training makes the walk better, and they’ll still feel some aches and pains once it’s all over. But the aches and pains pale in comparison to the feeling they’ll have once the walk is finished.

So if you’re thinking about walking the 3 Day, let me know! I would love to answer any questions that you might have. And I’ll let you know later which of my friends decide to walk with me this year!

Pinktober365.com

I recently submitted my PINK story for a wonderful website, Pinktober365.com. The website is a collection of stories from breast cancer survivors and breast cancer warriors, and the goal is to create a daily awareness for breast cancer. If you know of anyone who would like to share their PINK story, please let me know and I can place you in contact with the website's creator. The following, is my PINK story:

It has been said that someone doesn't become passionate about something until it affects them personally. Finding a cure for breast cancer is personal to me...my grandmother, my great aunt (my grandmother’s sister), my aunt, and stepmother are all breast cancer survivors!

I have always walked and volunteered for the local Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure events in cities that I live in. Once I learned about the Susan G. Komen 3-Day I really wanted to walk it. But there was never a walk close enough to where I lived. Then my luck changed...I relocated to Dallas, Texas!

In January 2009 when I first registered for the 3-Day, I had no idea about the journey I was beginning. During the next 10 months I learned so much about myself, the things that are really important in life, and what I can do when I put my mind to it. I also learned of many more friends and friends of friends who had won the fight against breast cancer.

As I walked the last mile of my first 3-Day in November 2009, I kept saying to myself over and over "I can't believe I just walked 60 miles!". I also knew that it wouldn't be the last 60 miles that I would walk to find a cure for breast cancer.

Including my first walk in Dallas in 2009, I have walked five different events in three different cities (Dallas ’09, ’10 & ‘11, Chicago ‘10, and Tampa ‘11). I have walked multiple cities in a year, including walking back to back events in 2011. All of the walks are special to me, although walking Chicago in 2010 tops the list. While my stepmom and I were training for the walk, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was six weeks post-op from her mastectomy when we walked, and she was able to participate in the Survivor’s Circle for opening and closing ceremonies. And the cherry on top was having all of my family there to cheer us on and experience it with us.

I walk for my family members and friends who have beat this disease. I walk for all of the fighters of this disease who I will never have the honor to meet. I walk for the awareness and education the 3-Day event creates in communities. I walk because I know that one day a cure for breast cancer will be found!

Consider doing something extraordinary and join my PINK 3-Day family for the 2012 Susan G. Komen 3-Day!

Four Types of Friendship

While reading MWF Seeking BFF, I learned about the four major types of friendships:

1) The Acquaintance - someone you'd chat with on the street or at a local cafe;

2) The Casual Friend - a 'grab lunch' pal who often serves a specific purpose, such as a tennis or running partner;

3) The Close Buddy - an intimate, trustworthy comrade you can say anything to; and

4) The Lifer - who's as deep and forever as family.

According to the book, women should have 3 - 5 lifers, 5 - 20 close friends, 10 - 150 casual friends, and 10 - 100 acquaintances. After reading this, it made me think about the make up of my friendships.

The writer of MWF Seeking BFF, was in search of a friendship like she has with her two besties from grade school. When I think about my friendships, I don't have a bestie from 'way back in the day'. When I was growing up, I had a group of best friends who I always thought I would be best friends with. But then life after high school began, and for me, those friendships slowly faded away. I do run into some of them from time to time when I return home to visit my family. Although I'm happy to see them and catch up, I feel like we live in two different worlds. For me, they have moved into the acquaintance category.

When I went to college I met one of my friends that I consider a Lifer. When I first arrived on campus I sought her out to learn more about sororities. After five minutes of talking, our friendship grew into so much more. (And I never did join a sorority) Today she and I live in different parts of the country and we don't talk on the phone nearly as much as we used to. When I was recently in her city on business we got together, and you would have thought our last conversation was just days before. I know that I can always count on her for anything and that she is just a phone call away.

When I think about my Lifer category, I honestly don't have that minimum three people that probably should be in that category. When I think about another friend that I would place in this category, she is a friend that I have only known for a few years. The best thing about our friendship is that she allowed it to grow naturally for me. She would consistently ask me to do things with her, and I would consistently say 'yes' only to cancel at the last minute. But that never stopped her from asking. When I finally started accepting her invitations for more small group interactions, our friendship quickly started to grow. Now I know that no matter what happens, she and I will always be friends.

I believe that most of my friendships fall into the casual friend category, sometimes overlapping into the close buddy category. For me, if I can't tell someone anything and everything, they are probably more of a casual friend than a close buddy. But then again, I do have some friends that I can say anything to, just not anything about everything. (Make sense?)

I'll be the first to admit, that I tend to keep people at arm's length. For someone to really get into my inner circle, it takes a lot. There isn't any type of criteria that has to be met, it's just when I feel comfortable and that I can really trust someone. You've all heard someone say, "It's not you, it's me". Well, it really is me.

MWF Doesn't Find BFF

Well, I finally finished reading MWF Seeks BFF. Being the nice person that I am, I think my initial thoughts about the book might have been a bit harsh. At least by the end of the book, the writer seemed like she became a bit more normal and less obsessive about her pursuit and expectations for friendship. The writer didn't find a new BFF although she did find about 22 new, solid friendships (according to her Dunbar Number calculations, she only had room for 20 more friends anyway). Moving on...

Overall the book left me very intrigued about friendships - how they develop, how they are maintained, and how they end. I think most people think that I'm a fairly like able person (of course I do have my moments!), and that I've never met a stranger (I think I have my dad to thank for this trait). A friend says it's because I smile a lot which makes me engaging to others (who knows). It's very easy for me to start a conversation with someone on just about anything.

On the flip slide I don't talk about myself very much. Although I'll admit that I'm an open book (just ask me anything you want to know and I'll tell you), in the same breath I'll say that I'm also a very private person. (If you're not directly asking me something about me, I'm probably not voluntary telling you what you want to know). I can still remember participating in a team building exercise at work. One person who I considered a work friend said "Shannon knows a lot about me, but I hardly know anything about her. She has a way of turning the conversation around to make it all about me." And she was right.

In light of my shortcomings (believe me, the list is long), I still don't have a problem meeting people. After reading MWF Seeks BFF, I think making friends is a more conscious effort for some people than others. My biggest problem is developing friendships with people that I meet. Part of this I blame on my career choice (traveling for weeks at a time can make it difficult to give a new friendship the attention that it needs) and the other part is that I don't have a big desire to find 52 (or even 22) new friends like the writer of the book did.

I'm sure if I figured out my Dunbar Number, there's probably room for more friends in my life. Maybe I should figure out what that number is. Well, one day...

MWF Seeks BFF

The theme for this month's NaBloPoMo is 'relative' and the focus on relationships. Although I might follow the daily prompts for writing, I'm also thinking about writing about some topics from a book I have been reading, MWF Seeks BFF: My Yearlong Search for a New Bestfriend by Rachel Bertsche. And probably from the title you've figured out what the book is about. Basically the writer has relocated to Chicago with her husband and well, doesn't have any friends (OK, friends who live in the Chicago area).

I thought the book would be kind of lighthearted, but it is laced with a LOT of scientific data about friendships and the research the writer has conducted. Who knew? I mean, who knew that it's soooo much work to make friends? Similar to the writer, I have relocated to several different states since I've been an adult. And I can't say that making friends has been that difficult for me.

Other than the scientific data, the writer also seems to be a bit, well needy. She sets up 'friend dates' and over analyzes them before the 'date' even happens. Like, "Julie is 40 and has two kids so I don't think she will make a good BFF." Seriously? And even if she doesn't hit it off with the potential friend, she's disappointed when the person doesn't respond back to her follow up emails. I mentioned that the writer is married, and I certainly feel for her poor husband who is on the journey (not his choice) with her. Oh, I forgot to mention that the writer's goal is to go on one friend date a week for a year. So far, I'm only about half through the year in this (long, drawn out) process.

Although the book makes me frustrated at times, whenever I start a book I have to finish the book. Hopefully by time I reach the end of the book, Rachel will find a new BFF and I will learn more about my friendships too.