What is a friendship worth to you?

Are the people you hang out with important to you, and if so, how do you show that value to them?

I’m a question guy. I spend much of my life thinking about questions, and what the answers to those questions could be. Today, even, someone saw me and asked if I was doing alright. Apparently I looked depressed; I wasn’t, I had just finished a class that covered some of the Holocaust. So I was thinking. Pulling themes from that, books I’ve read lately, and current life. Anyway, nothing to smile over, but I personally was doing fine. Digression aside, my point is that I seem to come up with a lot of questions as I cogitate my life, and what goes on around me.

Continual topic of questions: friendships, and people.

Last week, I people watched. I also blogged about it. Summary: basically I sat in the caf for a good 45 minutes to an hour, in the middle of a high-traffic area, and only three people acknowledged my presence in any way. In some ways, I wasn’t too surprised. In other ways, I was shocked. It wasn’t hard to seem me, I was even trying to make eye contact with people I knew. Nothing. So, I’ve been thinking about the implications of that this past week.

One, how do I come across to the people I know? Talking about the situation, someone commented that, knowing that I am an introvert, and do actively seek time by myself, if they were to see me would probably leave me alone. Which was interesting. From my perspective, I seek time to myself in a place other than the caf. Yes, I do go sit by myself sometimes, but I also have no issues with someone I know sitting with me. I just don’t want people feeling ‘sorry’ for me because I’m alone; not people leaving me alone per say. If I truly want to be alone, I make sure I will be left alone. In my room, on a walk outside of JBU, a drive…I have my ways. Anyway, the comment was interesting because it made me wonder what people think of me (not a new question for me, or most people I would suspect). And specifically, do I come across in a way that would make someone question whether or not they would talk to me if they saw me by myself. Interesting…

Do I do that? (Reoccurring question; keep reading)

Another question, how ingrained in our own lives and worlds are we that we miss the world around us. Sitting that day in the caf, I was ‘ignored’ by friend and stranger alike. And by ‘ignored’, I mean no eye contact, no glance in my direction, no talking, nothing. I’m sure people saw me, it’s not as though I was invisible. And I think most of what happened was simply because people were focused on the task at hand: getting food (which is quite important). But, are we so wrapped up in what we are doing that we don’t notice something outside of what affects us? Of course we see people all the time…but do we notice them? Or are we just going through life, and unless it involves us, are we content to just leave them alone?

Do I just walk through life like that?

The sad truth is, I don’t just wonder if I do; I know I do.

I have walked passed so many people, and completely ‘ignored’ them.

I have seen people I know, and made no effort to go out of my way to say anything to them.

Even to close friends.

Why?

Is my life so important that I can’t deviate my planned course for one minute to say ‘hi’? Am I too comfortable in my own life, that I don’t want to step out a bit and interact?

So, taking such questions into consideration, I tried to be at least a little bit different this week. I slowed down a bit as I gathered my food from the different stations. I looked at people. Not in the way that ignores their presence, but actually noticing they exist. Making eye contact. Talking to people.

It’s interesting, even trying to make eye contact, few people do. I have been trying to catch people’s glances as they walk by, and some do, and some act like they don’t want to admit that I am even there. But, if nothing else, hopefully I haven’t acted the same way.

Why? Why is this even important?

Because, I think friendships have value. People have value. To just walk by with my head down, or avoid eye contact, is to treat a person in a way that doesn’t dignify them with that value that they have. I don’t think that’s right.

The other night, I was working through some personal issues I have with my friendships. I’m going to be open here, this is something I work through a lot. The details aren’t important, but basically I was dealing with feeling left out. Somehow I seem to do this a lot. For unjustified reasons, I use pointless examples to convince myself that I have been left out, and that people don’t care about me. It’s a lie, I know it’s a lie, yet I buy into it again and again. It’s the trivial things usually too, things that no one intends to mean anything at all. Yet, being the over-analytical person I am, I read into them. Some days it might even be walking down a side walk, and feeling completely non-existent as people walk by.

It’s a weakness that I am having to turn over to God, bit by bit, piece by piece. I wish I didn’t go through this, that I would learn. Yet, it draws me closer to God. The only place I know to go with that frustration and that insecurity, is to God. And every time, every time, he picks me up.

In fact, he did the other night. Something had happened, or more accurately, hadn’t happened for me, and so I was struggling with feeling left out. A danger this leads me to sometimes, is to not care about the friends I do have—after all, if I feel like they don’t care about me, why should I keep working to have the friendship? (selfish, yes; wrong, yes; yet I have this question go through my head time and time again) So, that was the place I was at. I prayed a simple prayer: “God, highlight the important friendships in my life; I question how much people value my friendship, show me people that do.”

In the past 26 hours since I have prayed that prayer, here is what has happened. Somehow, my feelings of ‘aloneness’ and feeling left out completely disappeared. The issue that had caused this in the first place, well it’s still there, but I think I view it in a correct light. Not only that, but multiple situations, little things, have happened since then, answering my prayer so well. Just one example. Right after, almost literally, praying that prayer, something happened. I was sitting in a secluded corner of Walker, only a few people were there. I had wanted to be in the prayer closet, but it was occupied, so I chose a corner of the student center for myself. I had my Bible and an iPod. I was in my own world as I could be. A friend of mine came in at the other end of the building, proceeded to head towards the dorms, but he noticed me. And he stopped, changed directions completely, and came to my table to say ‘hi’. I don’t even remember the conversation, it probably lasted a minute at the most. But that single event meant a lot to me. God answered my prayer in that simple action. My friend may never even know what that meant to me. He wasn’t trying to affect me in any way, only to talk a bit. I had enough value to him in that moment to justify a change in his plans to interact with me.

So, where I’m at right now is asking the question, how do I convey to the people around me that they have value, and that I recognize that? What are the simple things I can do to show that, because it is often the simple things that say the most.

I fail at this in 101 different ways. But I hope to fail only 100 ways next week, and 99 ways the next. God will certainly have to show me this again and again. I will have prayers exactly like that again. I will feel alone and left out again. I’ll be guilt of the exact same ‘ignoring’ other people again. And each time, hopefully by God’s grace, I will be a little better. It seems worth it to me, even if I still feel like I go through the same basic issue again and again. The steps may seem insignificant, almost non existent. But better to take them than to never try at all.

After my people watching experience (which, by the way was NOT one of my ‘feeling left out’ situations), I think this may be something a lot of people could be better at. Imagine what could change if those small, insignificant decisions were made to actually notice people.

What if we walked down the sidewalk and looked at people, instead of at our feet?

What if we, as we rush through the lines of the caf, we take note of the people around us? Nothing extraordinary, just eye contact and a smile. It says a lot.

What if, instead of focusing on the next place we need to be, we take a moment to go out of our way to say ‘hi’ to someone?

What if we just tried to show that we care?

These are the questions I ask. These are the answers I am trying to find. Do you?