The trend promoted by the social networking sites to classify the people in your life into relations......I just do not get it!
An individual's life is engraved with myriad experiences that he/she has with so many people in his/her life.
I somehow find it impossible to introduce any XYZ as my friend. I cannot even call them an acquaintance on their face(very rude!).
So why do I need to assign a tag to everyone I know or recognise? I cannot tag the lady traffic police controller who helps me park every time I visit a library in my city. She is certainly not my family, my friend or even an acquaintance for that matter. I do not know her name. I am always far away from her to read her name on her name plate. Yet she is always there when I need her.
Not every relationship in life is need-based too! I do not have the time to maintain my old friendships and mind you there are just four! So why do I make a new friend? May be I am enriched by the interactions with him/her. May be I cherish the company and do not want to miss out on having a like-minded friend.
What about the relationships that are need-based and named? Are they less important? No, I feel that such relations are the building blocks of our lives. They are a legacy, a tradition. This alone certifies their significance. To have an anchor in our family makes us the social animals that we are.
However I can digress from the tagging done to the relations and call my partner my best friend, my daughter my mother and my staff my weatherman!
I simply refuse to classify and answer for every relation in my life. Because from where I see them, all of them are associations between two similar souls.
An individual's life is engraved with myriad experiences that he/she has with so many people in his/her life.
I somehow find it impossible to introduce any XYZ as my friend. I cannot even call them an acquaintance on their face(very rude!).
So why do I need to assign a tag to everyone I know or recognise? I cannot tag the lady traffic police controller who helps me park every time I visit a library in my city. She is certainly not my family, my friend or even an acquaintance for that matter. I do not know her name. I am always far away from her to read her name on her name plate. Yet she is always there when I need her.
Not every relationship in life is need-based too! I do not have the time to maintain my old friendships and mind you there are just four! So why do I make a new friend? May be I am enriched by the interactions with him/her. May be I cherish the company and do not want to miss out on having a like-minded friend.
What about the relationships that are need-based and named? Are they less important? No, I feel that such relations are the building blocks of our lives. They are a legacy, a tradition. This alone certifies their significance. To have an anchor in our family makes us the social animals that we are.
However I can digress from the tagging done to the relations and call my partner my best friend, my daughter my mother and my staff my weatherman!
I simply refuse to classify and answer for every relation in my life. Because from where I see them, all of them are associations between two similar souls.
Sometimes I think the social media want to create false relationships, to give the impression of friendships when, in fact, they don't exist. Of course maybe we are all so lonely that we jump at the chance to call someone a friend when that person is someone we have never met and probably won't.
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