Tag Archive for Friends

Reducing Friends on Facebook – Update

December 20, 2010 mfcarter@mfcarter.net Musings, Writing

Friends on FacebookLast week I posted that I was cutting down on the number of friends that I had in Facebook. I had nearly 1000 friends and found it very difficult to keep up with all the contacts. Also, for me, the quality of the experience was deteriorating rapidly.

I have since cut my friends down in half. This is a time consuming process on Facebook for various reasons; however, I’m finding the time that I’ve invested in reducing the number of friends is the best thing I’ve done in ages.

The experience has turned out to be very rewarding. I feel like the time I have to spend interacting with specific individuals has increased. I have more time to read their posts and respond to them. In addition, some people who have been quiet on my wall have started talking.

It is not just that the time that I have available to interact with people has increased but also the quality of the interaction is much better. When I have more time to actually write a response rather than just clicking a Like button, it enriches all my interactions because people actually get to know what I think and it offers them a chance to respond back to me.  An exchange of ideas and opinions in my opinion is one of the best things that you can do on Facebook for yourself or others.

I highly recommend that you try reducing your number of friends, particularly if you have a lot of them. You might be surprised at the benefits and feel much more rewarded as a result.

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Quality versus Quantity and the Perception of Friends on Facebook

December 2, 2010 mfcarter@mfcarter.net Musings, Writing

I’ve been having an internal debate recently about what to do about Facebook. My friends list keeps growing and growing but the reality is I end up interacting with only a few people of the hundreds that I have accepted as friends.

My goal initially with Facebook was to make contact with artists all over the world. In this goal, I consider myself very successful. Then family members started joining Facebook and it became a way to keep in touch with the English and Spanish speaking members of my family. I’ve enjoyed this aspect as well.

There is a group of hundreds of friends that I rarely hear from. One part of this group is people who never interact at all after the first hello. The second and larger part is a group of people who I comment and interact with things on their walls but they never or rarely respond back.

Both groups leave me feeling as if a significant portion of my Facebook friends are not really very friendly at all. It ends up feeling very empty and unsatisfying. My internal debate has been what to do with these friends and what is my interest in continuing with these groups.

As of today, I have decided to undertake an experiment. I’m going to consciously limit the number of people in my friends list. If I haven’t interacted with them recently or they with me, I intend to unfriend them. I have no anger with these people, I am simply choosing to focus on quality relationships.

For me, a realistic number, would be no more than a couple of hundred people or perhaps even less. My expectation in the future and I will try to be clear with everyone that I friend is that I expect quality interaction. For me to feel satisfied, I need be on a two way street, If I interact with their content they should respond back and they should interact with my posts. They should also expect the same of me.

A new world, at least for me, begins today.

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Margarita’s Father

February 2, 2007 mfcarter@mfcarter.net Culture, Writing

Margarita is an old friend of ours. We have visited her every time we go to Queretaro.

Margarita’s family is famous even up here in Vermont because of her mother’s mole making. Mole is a Mexican specialty. It is a sauce made of a combination of chilies, nuts, seeds, vegetables, spices, and most importantly chocolate. When Margarita’s mother makes mole, all of Queretaro knows it. The rich aroma of the ingredients spreads throughout the entire city and everyone steps a little lighter and faster because of it.

Margarita’s father has always been a strong man. He runs regularly and has a great joy in his body, working out, and in any physical exertion. Margarita lives with her parents and teaches English at the local high school. She enjoys the work and her students and takes great pride in herself.

This year when we were in Queretaro, we first met her at a gathering of friends at the house where we were staying. She was cheerful but after a while she told us the story of her father. He had a stroke in June and had lost control of the left side of his body. Now, he is starting to gain some strength and movement once again. The sorrow in Margarita’s eyes as she was telling us about the experiences of this last year was very apparent. She insisted though that we come by as usual on our annual visits to visit her parents and to see the changes that she had done to her rooms.

The next day, we were walking in the city and decided to go to visit her family. We were met at the door by her mother who was very happy to see us. Also, a man that we didn’t know arrived at the same time we did. He was cheerful and friendly. He was there to help her father with managing his medicines. I could see the movement of someone’s feet through the front windows of their house. I assumed that it was her father.

When we entered the house, I could see that I was right. Her father was sitting in a lounge chair at the front of the house in the sunshine of the window. The family cleared the area to leave us alone while we visited with him.

As we approached, you could see that there was an awkwardness in him. It was as if he wanted to stand to greet us and even though he knew that he couldn’t he was going to try anyway. I remember thinking that this man was a real fighter. I was at a loss for words but Mario approached closer to him and sat beside him. Margarita’s father was obviously very happy to see us but quickly there came an even deeper melancholy to him. I could tell he was thinking of himself being healthy and getting ready to go for a run like he was doing the last time we were there.

At that moment, it was as if the whole world became very quiet. There was nothing else but us and Margarita’s father and the beautiful light streaming in through the living room window. He was so overcome with emotions that he couldn’t utter a word. You could only read the muscles in his face as they fluttered with the emotions that were passing through him. This man, who was once so proud of his body, now was dependent on other people. So, rather than talk, he motioned with his right hand which he still had control of. He made a motion with this hand as if to cut his body in half. He then picked up his left, nearly lifeless, hand and placed it in Mario’s. Mario said simply, “I understand.” It was then that the sound came back into the world. Margarita’s father could speak. They talked about Christmas, dinner, and all the kids coming to visit.

They never returned to his new life.

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The Candy Store

February 2, 2007 mfcarter@mfcarter.net Culture, Writing

While we were in Queretaro, a friend of mine, Carol, was taking care of my cat, Winnie. Winnie is very old and was diagnosed with thyroid problems just before this vacation. So, not only did Carol have to feed Winnie daily, she also had to giver her a daily dose of medicine. I wanted to find something special for my friend to thank her for her help. Carol had requested some Mexican Vanilla but with the restrictions on carrying liquids on the airplane, I knew that was an impossibility so instead kept it in my mind to look for something else.

So one day we were walking the streets of Queretaro I spotted a candy store. This store is one of the many very small local stores that enterprising individuals set up to earn a living. It was in the colonial area downtown very near were I was staying. The store was very small, about the size of an office space. I had to step down into it in order to look around. The store was amazing. It was not your normal candy store that you would find in the U.S. instead; it carried a variety of candied fruits and nuts. I knew that Carol wasn’t a big fan of sweets but I thought these would be different enough from the average that we encounter in the U.S. that she would truly enjoy them for their difference. We stopped to chat with the lady and bought some for ourselves. The candied guyaba and pineapple were delicious. We had a very pleasant visit with the shop owner. She was very kind with her suggestions and wanted me to taste practically everything because I had told her that I had never had anything like this in my life. She was excited to be showing me the new flavors. I vowed to return eventually, to purchase something for Carol.

About a week later, we returned to the store to make our purchases for Carol. Just before we entered the store, I noticed at the corner of the entrance and brightly colored, blue and yellow, wheel chair and on the floor was a little boy. She explained that was her son who had cerebral palsy. His name was Paco. He couldn’t walk but pulled himself along the floor. We gave Paco a hug and gave the shop owner a hug as well. I think she was surprised to see us again. While we were making our purchases, she called her daughter over to talk to us. The daughter was maybe 12 years old. She wanted her daughter to practice English with me. Apparently, she had changed schools and was no longer being taught English but still wanted to practice. During our discussion, I told her that one thing that was crucial to learning a language was not to be afraid. The mother at that point asked her what I had said and the daughter translated into Spanish.

The mother at that point started to cry. They were tears of desperation and anguish. She said that fear was the only thing she had at this point. Her son was in need of medicine and that she had not been able to afford to purchase it for him. The medicine was necessary to prevent seizures. She had started the candy store to help her pay for the medicine. We consoled her as much as we could. Hugged her and told her that with faith and persistence anything is possible. We bought probably more candy than we should have but she also gave us more than we actually bought.

As we were walking home, we were discussing what we could possibly do to help. One of the things we could do, Mario suggested, was to give her some money to help her in buying the drugs she needed for her son. We pooled our resources and returned to the store. Only her daughter and the little boy were in the store when we returned. The daughter said that her mother would return in a little while. We told her that we had some money to help with Paco, her brother. She first insisted that she couldn’t accept it and then did. Crying, she carried the money to her little brother who was on the floor and showed the money to him saying, “This is for you, my dear little brother,” She then turned and thanked us. We said that we hoped that things would soon get better and wished her and her brother the best.

The second thing we did for Paco was to make a connection. We have a friend in Queretaro, Claudia. Her job is to work to help the poor navigate through the medical system and she is an advocate for people who can’t afford their drugs. We talked to her a little about what we had observed and she said that we should give her telephone number to the family. She said that she believed that she would be able to help them.

The next day, we returned again to the candy store. This time, the owner’s sister was taking care of the store. There was no sign of Paco or his sister. We explained who we were and she said that she already knew. We told her that we have a friend who can help and gave them the telephone number and our email that they could use in case they needed anything.

We received an email from the family after we had returned to the U.S. They expressed their thanks for all our help. Paco is doing better and has returned to school thanks to his medicine. He will never be well and will have his ups and downs but we have helped him for the moment. The family is now calling us their angels from America.

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