Is the Economy Making Us Anti-Social?

MPG

Our busy live aren't really as busy.  We just do things that take up our time to hide from the things that we don't want to face.  Friendships have been tested and some exposed, leaving some happy and others not so happy.  This recession showed a few of us that our "friends" put the price of gas over hanging out, that distance is this big wall that requires a visa that we can never qualify for.  This imploding alienation has bred us to think that we all were enemies in the first place and again add a third reason to ruin a friendship.  Lil Wayne said "not having money is the root of all evil" and for some it has been a self fulfilling prophecy while others use it as a scapegoat to avoid taking initiative or responsibility.  This stand off of who must show effort and counting who did what and when and how much,  must end.  But how can it when everybody is watching everybody.

When I met my high school friend and realized that he lived 15 minutes by foot from me, I was there almost everyday.  Some people nowadays won't even drive 15 minutes to go say "hi" to a friend.  Even walking for 15 minutes is like asking the world of some as well, when there are health benefits to walking.  But we buy our nice cars, putting ourselves in debt, to look good but then won't even drive the same car over to their friend's house.  I'm not sure if that even qualifies as selfishness.  The ease of the smartphone and social sites wiped out all of those needs and brought back our friends to just a click away, way closer than a 15 minute walk but yet the distance exists and this time with a hollowness.  The conversation you have when you're sitting on a back fence side by side eating mangoes will never be as fulfilling as these new ways.  As a matter of fact those mango talks last longer in memory.

So people change, grow up, branch off, find new paths and careers but the word "friend" didn't change, it's meaning didn't but for some reason we expired the definition.   Worse, now that we must fend for ourselves and 'things are tight', we chose to cut the things that doesn't mean as much to us.  So when did killing an evening over your friend's house become meaningless? A gallon of gas will do on average 20 miles for under $4.00.  I guess we are to now accept that that 3 hours that you spent over your friend's house, to wind down your day or week or month...or to put your mind at ease, to hear some helpful advice, to have a giggle and a candid smile, is now not even worth $4.00? It is those moments that make people happy, that help us make better decisions, that stop people from committing suicide, that keeps marriages together, that keep us out of trouble, that keeps us centered.  But instead, we get caught up in what it takes to use one gallon of gas out of the car that we bought so that we didn't have to walk anymore.  
Being innovative enough to now only use our friends when we want something as an excuse to go hang out has been reveling to me.  You need to make commission or you need to sell something to make a profit; this is when you remember your "friend".  Now that something is in it for you to make back your all important gas money, that's when you reach out to your friend.  I used to get home from school, change, eat, throw on my sneakers then trek down to my friend's house, for nothing more than to hang with my friend.  There were no material gains, none offered and none sought.  But now it has changed to "what's in it for me".

The newest fad is thinking that the other person is thinking that they are now better than you.   A misread text or post or even a missed anything done remotely is like a charged venomous attack on your person.  Another reason not to spend $4.  Things like that wouldn't happen while sitting on a roof peeking over the neighbor's yard at the pretty girl who just moved in...never.  So we spend zero and intake everything as negative when we could have spent $4 and avoided this zombie attack that we imagined.  Laughter together is so much more refreshing that texting "LOL", but I guess since "LOL" is free then we are happy anyway because we saved $4...right?

Now for the icing on the cake.  Feeling left out when something good happens in the others life.  Now the truth is out. That person has made you their enemy because they deliberately did it.  Now you're definitely not going to be going over there anymore.  All to save four dollars.   We probably spend $4 dollars on unnecessary things and on bad food at least once a month.  That thing we bought is probably lost, broken, thrown out or gathering dust.  That bad food we bought, is now living as fat in our bodies, making us less physically appealing to our loved ones who is now resenting you; making it easier to argue and adding to your unhappy life because your stuck at home because you don't want to go anywhere...hmmm.   I love when things are circular.  

Our days of closeness with our beloved friends should not be stories of old, while we mourn them changing and becoming vengeful creatures, just so we can save $4 in "these hard times."  These hard times is exactly when we should be spending that four dollars to remain strong with those beloved friends.  We'd probably be handling these hard times alot better if we maintained those candid moments in the present rather than sing them at funerals of "friendships passed".  How bad could it be because staying at home, saving $4 and typing "LOL" hasn't done us any better.

Thanks for reading.