Okay, I'm a bit rubbish, but this is the last of the questions except for the 2nd ones from people who asked two.
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nou asked "What's your approach to making and maintaining friendships? For example, do you have a systematic way of keeping track of people you haven't seen or talked to for a while? Do you tend to send chatty emails to keep in touch with people? Do you seek out new acquaintances with a view to friendship, or do you feel your social circle is too big to comfortably expand?"
So the simple answer to this is no, no, no, and yes. Part of it is that I live with my partner and one of my best friends, so to a great extent, I can get nearly all the social contact I need at home. Part of it is that I'm not very good at making time for online communication and I'm really really bad at replying to chatty emails, even though I love reading them.
One systematic thing that I do is have a monthly dinner date with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
borusa, which we started doing when we broke up in order to ensure that our "let's still be friends" actually meant something, and we've been doing now for, what is it, eight, nine years? I can't easily express how important these dinners are to me, but they've been an vital part of keeping me sane when times have been hard, and are a source of tremendous pleasure, both from the company and our shared love of excellent food, when times are good.
That said, there are plenty of other people who are very dear to me whom I don't see often enough, and every time we see each other, three, six, twelve months apart, we say "let's not let it be so long next time", and yet it always is. Given this, whilst meeting new people and getting to know them is fun, when I don't have enough time to keep up with the friends I already have and love, it seems somewhat self defeating. Of course I make the odd exception, Seph in Oxford, who made me welcome at my first night out at Intrusion, and Lindsay from church, who reminded me so much ofkerrypolka that I couldn't help but be drawn to her, but they are few and far between, and I don't really see that changing.
nou asked "What's your approach to making and maintaining friendships? For example, do you have a systematic way of keeping track of people you haven't seen or talked to for a while? Do you tend to send chatty emails to keep in touch with people? Do you seek out new acquaintances with a view to friendship, or do you feel your social circle is too big to comfortably expand?"So the simple answer to this is no, no, no, and yes. Part of it is that I live with my partner and one of my best friends, so to a great extent, I can get nearly all the social contact I need at home. Part of it is that I'm not very good at making time for online communication and I'm really really bad at replying to chatty emails, even though I love reading them.
One systematic thing that I do is have a monthly dinner date with
borusa, which we started doing when we broke up in order to ensure that our "let's still be friends" actually meant something, and we've been doing now for, what is it, eight, nine years? I can't easily express how important these dinners are to me, but they've been an vital part of keeping me sane when times have been hard, and are a source of tremendous pleasure, both from the company and our shared love of excellent food, when times are good.That said, there are plenty of other people who are very dear to me whom I don't see often enough, and every time we see each other, three, six, twelve months apart, we say "let's not let it be so long next time", and yet it always is. Given this, whilst meeting new people and getting to know them is fun, when I don't have enough time to keep up with the friends I already have and love, it seems somewhat self defeating. Of course I make the odd exception, Seph in Oxford, who made me welcome at my first night out at Intrusion, and Lindsay from church, who reminded me so much of
kerrypolka that I couldn't help but be drawn to her, but they are few and far between, and I don't really see that changing.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-01 11:10 pm (UTC)From:I keep having to remind myself that it's actually not possible for me to be friends with all the people with whom I would be compatible for friendship, and it's OK to have limits on the amount of socialising I can/want to do.
no subject
Date: 2015-01-02 07:01 am (UTC)From: