When I was four years old, my best friend Malia lived two blocks away; I rode my bike to her house, and we sped off to explore our neighborhood. In high school, all of my friends lived within a fifteen-mile radius; we coordinated hangouts over the phone, we sent beeper messages to one another, we took a quick Samtrans bus ride to meet at Hillsdale Mall, or we borrowed a parent’s car to crash a party in Belmont or Burlingame. ‘Twas the bubble of a teenager on the San Francisco Peninsula. And in college in Los Angeles, I lived in even closer proximity to my friends: In the same dorm. In the same hall that reeked of SoCal weed and Coors Light. In the same party house, directly across the street from a combined KFC/Taco Bell.
It never crossed my mind that I’d not physically be able to see my friends whenever I wanted. Ten years later, my best friends are scattered across the country and the world.
Geography is my nemesis.
Where you are in relation to where I am. Place. Geography. Distance.
I think about how I grew close to one of my dearest friends, Lisa. She moved into the room next door on the third floor of McKay Hall, a dorm on the Loyola Marymount University campus in August 1997. I really didn’t like her when we first met, and I wonder if being neighbors—and having no choice but to run into her dozens of times a day—made it easier for our friendship to blossom. Because by the end of college, most of my best friends had lived in McKay, on our floor, that freshman year.
And I wonder: if I chose to live in the girls-only dorm across campus, would I have different friends today?
* * *
The physical world of green grass and blue sky. Of proximity and holding hands.
When I was younger, I gravitated to social circles physically near me—within the sphere with which I was familiar: the neighborhood girls on the other side of the block, the kids in my row in kindergarten, the classmates in my middle school homeroom.
As a child, or even a seventeen-year-old, my passions weren’t ripe—I wasn’t inspired to look beyond my stomping ground for friendship. And I’m not saying I simply played with Malia because she lived two blocks away; we got along delightfully. And I’m not saying I would never have become friends with Lisa if we hadn’t shared a common wall.
But proximity made it possible—and much easier to play.
* * *
Some commenters to part II, Facebook, Twitter and the Seeds of Compartmentalization, describe Facebook as a dusty Rolodex of those they know by default, and not by choice: elementary school classmates, people they can’t get rid of (relatives), and randoms they’re connected to for no substantial reason (individuals known through exes, acquaintances met at parties, strays from past jobs). Facebook represents their stagnant past and awkward present (while Twitter has become an outlet for new and future relationships based on mutual, evolving interests).
When you settle geographically in one place, you accumulate friends, some of whom become your best friends. Or your lovers. But you’re also stuck with the people around you; you make the best of what and whom you’ve got. You may not click intellectually with the couple next door, but they’re accessible. They’re easy. They’re there. And boom: They become your weekly dinner guests. They become an integral part of your day-to-day life.
And that’s the thing about physical space: it makes connecting with others easier, which is something I’ve taken for granted. Yet this convenience can also feel limiting. Obvious, perhaps. But it’s something I’ve thought about as I’ve become more invested in various communities online.
* * *
A lone squirrel in the fog. No other critters about. Her thoughts keep her company.
I now live equally in real and virtual space. Many of us do. Not in that I’m obsessed with the Internet and must refresh my Facebook page every two minutes and must have my smart phone on me 24/7 way; rather, I maintain friendships and relationships quite organically, online and off.
In virtual space, I can mingle with and choose whom I want to know based on interests, regardless of where they live in the world. I’m not stuck in the same grade level at school; or forced to share a bunk in the same dorm room; or restricted by walls, by city boundaries, by mileage.
And so both realms, physical and virtual, are appealing: The concrete world where I can meet my father for lunch in South Beach on my day off, and where I can head to a Giants game with my good friend Noel on a warm evening in the bay. A physical space of certainties. And then there’s this boundless digital space, where the thinker, the romantic, and the dreamer in me gets much of its oxygen.
But it’s no longer fair, to either world, to make these distinctions.
There used to be a line separating the two; it’s all hazy now. In the meantime, the virtual in my life continues to grow, while the physical, and how I’d like to “use” the time within it, becomes more precious.
Parts I-IV in this Virtual Life Series:
- Notes on Virtual Life, Part VI: Facebook Status Updates (And What I Could Have Said)
- Notes on Virtual Life, Part IV: On Unplugging & Merging Virtual and Real
- Notes on Virtual Life, Part III: Nomadic Relationships
- Notes on Virtual Life, Part II: Facebook, Twitter, and the Seeds of Compartmentalization
- Notes on Virtual Life, Part I: The Evolution of Friendship
Love this! Beautifully written and composed as always, and you’ve made me think in a new way about my own relationship to geography. I started out physically distant from friends (I grew up on a remote ranch, had to drive an hour to get to my best friend’s farm). Then I moved across the country to go to college: widening the gap. Then I moved to a new country altogether. And even now, when I’m relatively settled, when I do feel I’m part of a community, I live in a place whose population is transient: students come and go, academics come and go, people rarely move here with the intention of staying long, and often you find they’ve drifted off to London, the big city, not physically far away but a world away in other ways. So I wonder if my fierce allegiance to the online world is a result of geography, or if on some level I choose places where I know there’s bound to be some distance?
Interesting…and yeah, I wonder if I’ve picked locations in the past where there’s distance of some sort, which has added romance and nostalgia to my relationships/friendships and life in general. It creates a longing and a desire to remember (which fuels my writing). San Francisco is the place currently where I feel most connected to many people, which is very appealing. But I know all of them will always be here, which (oddly) makes me want to leave, if temporarily. Strange.
I like this. I also grew up on the Peninsula crashing keggers and stealing our parents cars to drive along the coast, etc and can relate to this immensely (not just those parts.) Since I travel so much I’ve had many friends drop off my radar because they aren’t connected via the virtual world and it does make me a bit sad. Melancholy.
It is rather the order of things though isn’t it? To gain and lose friends as we drift through life?
“It is rather the order of things though isn’t it? To gain and lose friends as we drift through life?”
Yep, I hear that completely!
Thanks for stopping by
This is an interesting one. Especially over the last few years when I’ve had major life changes like graduating from college, moving, marriage, divorce, moving, traveling for several months, and then moving across the country. Friendships had such simplicity to me growing up: Getting on my bike and riding down the street, going to a friend’s house after basketball practice, and so on. Sure, there’s simplicity in “poking”, tweeting, or instant messaging someone, but this whole friendship thing these days. It’s unique. I think of my own closest friends and many of them now 1) Are a result of my online world, and 2) Live thousands of miles away.
Yes, I miss the days of hopping on my bike and riding down the street. So simple.
When I look at my little cousins and my nephews, I know they will make friends the “old-fashioned” way, but also in ways we didn’t experience. So interesting.
Really interesting post! I’m in the middle of my studies and I’m already noticing the physical distance between me and my friends. I’m from Germany, studying in The Netherlands, doing an internship in Italy. Some of my friends stayed in Germany. Others went to England, France or even the USA.
Nowadays, my virtual life is nearly as important as my real life. Not because I’m a internet junkie, but because I want to keep up with my friends….
“Nowadays, my virtual life is nearly as important as my real life.” << This. Yes. I do know what you mean (and how you feel). Sounds like your friends *are* scattered! One great thing about that is you always have a reason to travel somewhere
Thanks for the note!