I read somewhere once that maintaining relationships is the hardest thing to do in your life. And as such, unless you are building a business, it should only take 10% of your time or less. It even went to say that if you aren’t trying to network in order to gain something, you shouldn’t really worry about it.
I kind of quell at such a thought. Then I realize that it really is the truth. Unless I am networking for some opportunity, or I work with you, I really don’t talk to people much. I guess I figure that the friendship shouldn’t atrophy too much in the gaps between hi’s and bye’s, but then again, it does have the chance to.
Take for instance my childhood friend, and for the sake of the discussion, we will call him Kegley. Kegley and I were the best of friends growing up, I moved away, and we were able to make it work pretty well. We had a long distance friendship without much effort and we made it point to visit each other’s homesteads pretty often. We hit high school, things were good. We went to college together too. We even lived about a block away from each other for a year or so. But since I met my wife, and about the time I moved away again, it all stopped. I am not going to assign blame to any party in this relationship, but we are probably both to blame. I moved into a marriage, he moved on with the life he was happy with. And the friendship has atrophied to the point that I barely recognized him when I saw him last (about a year ago). It’s a bummer.
And the same thing is happening with my other friend, Dave. Dave is a networker. He is good at it. Admittedly, I have let that be a saving grace in our friendship. And again, we have had a long friendship with ups and downs, but we made it work. But I seemed to have fallen off his radar the last year or so… and the last couple times I have tried talking to him, I kind of got brushed off. I am sure he is busy, but it still kind of sucks.
So the question is… how much is it worth to invest in the relationship? How much time should you invest in the people around you? Personally I find it exhausting, as I am not very good at small talk, and I often slip into a fit of daydreams while people are talking to me. No seriously, its true.
Happens all the time. Let me tell you, people swear I am checked out when it happens. Like I am nodding in the right places, grunting in agreement, but for the most part, nothing behind the eyes.
Seriously though… What is that fine line between patience and abandonment?
I think the answer is a matter of just how much you think a friendship is worth. Now Kegley and I will probably not be able to mend things… I am guessing we are two completely different people now and the sheer awkwardness of the previous relationship would continually erode whatever efforts we made in trying to fix it. Dave on the other hand is probably salvageable, but if I am getting the brush off, that isn’t really something that I can fix.
It’s hard to draw that line when life keeps interrupting you.