Losing your job = losing your friends – is it?
One thing that I prepared myself for when I lost my job, was the loss of friends I made during my stint at the newspaper.
As a newspaper editor, one is quite aware of the fact that people “like” you or want to be “friends” with you or tolerate you because of the perceived power you have to create difficulties for them. The fact that it is untrue and that victimisation is in any way not your way of doing things, are irrelevant. The belief remains.
So, 5 months after I left, what is the situation?
I enjoy very much the continuing socialisation with old colleagues. With the exception of one, all my erstwhile colleagues remained friends.
We now socialise online where we used to do that in the office. I often still receive an email, sms or phone call for help with a child’s school project, just to say “how are you?” or to report some development in their lives. And I stay informed about their lives thanks to Facebook.
They were just as thrilled as I when my granddaughter was born and I obviously enjoy their observation that I look much healthier and relaxed compared to when I was still with the company. No-one actually observes that I lost weight, but that may be because I actually gained weight!
In my farewell speech when I left, I said that one is not remembered by what one takes along, but by what one leaves behind.
I am glad that my erstwhile colleagues remained friends.
Old friends I did not lose – that I know of. No, wait, maybe I did lose a number of those. There are a few people who were friends when I had value for them but who do not reply to invitations to have coffee.
Did I lose them as friends? I doubt that.
One gathers friends in many ways and degrees.
There are those people with who you share a morning coffee at a restaurant or a discussion about their children or where they are going for the weekend. Then there are acquaintances with who one shares a greeting in the street or an occasional meeting in a group. And then there are friends with who you share the sweet and the bitter of life, friends that are like family.
I have friends in all those categories. I did not lose friends, they just moved from one group to the other.
I have friends
because I have some perceived value for them
connect with them on an intellectual level
connect with them on an emotional level
or because they cannot find other friends.
What also changed is the concept of friends and social groups. If one uses social media to the extent that I use it, one gains a new kind of friend. Those that may be in Cape Town, Australia, Britain or the US.
And as I and old friends move on, we all move from being one type of friend to the other, from one group to another.