NEW YORK, Jan. 31 (DPI) — The NY Times’ Sunday Style section, long the paper’s repository for Cosmo-style journalism, didn’t disappoint this weekend with a feature that puzzled and amused many readers.
The article — on ending friendships in the digital age — was one of those impressionistic, feelings-driven narratives that serious news people abhor. But readers, free to instantly weigh in nowadays, at least found it entertaining. And their comments reflected it.
The premise — that real-world friendships are harder to manage and end in this age of social media — prompted more than 200 reader replies, most of them either readers recounting personal experiences or readers amused that such a question was even posed.
The replies also reflected something of a generation gap, as older readers (at least those identifying themselves as such) tried to reply to the article’s youthful neurosis:
(Comment – 96 Recs – Highest recommended) “OMG. High school just never ends for some people.
After 30 years in the military, I learned “New Place, New Faces.”
Now as I’m doing the ultimate move into retirement, I don’t expect to keep in contact with more than two of the people I’m professionally friends with. I have new interests, they’re not the same as the old ones. I’ll make new friends.
I agree with Mrs Horchow. Just let the old friendships fade. Decline or don’t reply.
The whole ‘sit down and talk it over’ approach is bogus. That’s just psychologists talking. That just ends with more hurt feelings.
If push comes to shove, there’s always being frank with the person. “You know, I’m not interested in doing stuff like PQR any more. I’m doing XYZ now, would you like to join me?” If not, then say, “Well, I hope you have a nice time.” Blame the activity or the event, not the person. Frankness like that, doesn’t take more than three conversations to conclude a friendship with no hard feelings.
Geeze, people, it’s not rocket science.
(Comment – 78 Recommendation) In the real world, a friend is actually a friend.
The reason we’ve never needed a ridiculous word like “de-friend” before Facebook is because true friendships don’t need a delete button. They last through the years, growing stronger, or sometimes they slowly fade with the vagaries of time and personal growth.
The worst thing about Facebook is the way that it has degraded and devalued the idea of friendship by using the word to describe relationships that are often shallow, casual, temporary and meaningless.
(Comment) All this hand-wringing! Do I stop being friends? Do I stay friends? Maybe we should have a ceremony! Who cares?? All this vain, obsessive, urban neurosis is, I hate to say it, very female.
Relationships come and go, rise, fall and rise again, for every reason under the sun. Facebook is the formalization of relationships – for young people, because Facebook’s impact on relationships is almost zip for people over 40. The comments here — many are experienced over-40 voices saying “Life Ain’t That Complicated” – are generally more intelligent than the premise of the article.”
Older readers provided the most perspective:
(Comment) “Friends are precious. Now, as I am in my 80’s many of the people I knew best and valued most are dead. I miss them. I often think of them. Yet, at this stage of life, I continue to seek new friends and to enjoy new contacts. I have not given up seeking–or remembering.”
(Comment – 65 Recommendations) “I have had a group of friends for 50 years. We have not all been close throughout the entire 50 years — we’ve come in and out of each other’s lives.
But as we have grown older, we have come together again.
We’ve been through marriages, divorces, children, sickness, death. We have laughed and cried with each other. We have forgiven each other. People who discard friends don’t know the meaning of friendship. It’s not always perfect.
Of course I have new friends too. I’ve already made new friends this year.
“Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver, the other is gold.”
(Comment) “This article gets … to the current “confessional” nature of our self involved culture. It seems more appropriate, as an adult, to recognize that the ebb and flow of friendships is no reason to “confess” you have no need for a friend any more.
What about simply not being available? What about understanding that just because a friend does not “fit” our current demands does not mean we need to compartmentalize our current state and sever the relationship forever. It seems odd to think that because we grow apart from friends we need to “divorce” them. It also seems shortsighted and inward rather than ourward thinking.”
(Comment) “Dear Lord, have we now gotten to the point where we are analyzing and classifying our friendships as “linear” or “nonlinear”, determining their “cost/benefit” ratio?
Can we be any more self-absorbed?
Just get on with your life. I would venture to say that most of those you have “de-friended” really couldn’t care less.”
Still, publishers don’t condemn such content, especially these days. Articles that ruminate on personal emotions and relationships serve as important lures for advertisers.
In this case, the young woman who was the focus of the article posed in a photo with a large red handbag — and preceding the online article was a handbag ad for Coach, the kind of retailer that’s all but shunned newspapers in recent years.
All serious news organizations must accommodate such content to spur commerce, and the New York Times is no exception, now or previously. Indeed, back in the 70s Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal introduced Sunday sections that attracted to the paper throngs of new retail advertisers – as well as criticism that he was selling out the paper. But the sources of new advertising only strengthened the paper and its voice, publishers agree.
The stakes are higher now, as print advertising recedes and online advertising has failed to swiftly replace it.