Disturbing Friendships

I came across this link in the very cool Freakonomics blog. Basically, a guy is selling himself as a "Rent-A-Pal" for 30 days, including unlimited e-mails. I'm not sure if this offer means that he'll send as many e-mails as one wants, or just that he won't report them all as spam.

I am a bit surprised that nobody has bid the $20 minimum yet. It can be hard to get someone to listen to you, and I figured some internet loner would put $20 down to get some social interaction.

I suppose if the selling bid is high enough, I might consider making myself available as an internet pal. Perhaps I could sell myself as an internet counselor and discount my services to $40-$60/hr. Some disclaimers would have to apply about advice being purely for entertainment purposes.

I spent part of today merging my old Pine addressbook with my primary Outlook one. It was interesting to go back at all the different names I've stored. Some of them are of people I barely interacted with, and yet I can instantly identify who they are and how they are connected to me. Other are of people that I *think* I knew for a period of time, yet I cannot place the name at all.

There's also a weird sense looking through the names. There are people I frequently interacted with a year ago that I rarely think of today. There are people that I rarely interacted with that I often ponder what happened to them. I'm also reminded of the people who have wandered back into my life after I was sure they were gone forever.

Finally, I'm reminded how solitary our life journey tends to be. I have a some friends I still keep in contact five years ago. A much smaller group from eight or nine years ago. And just a handful from beyond that. (I actually suspect that I keep in touch with more high school acquaintances than people from my freshman year of college.)

Even with the multi-year friendships, most of them have ebbed and flowed over time. People drift into life for a while, then out, then back. And then there's the plain bizarre, like long distance friends who move to my neighborhood.

In thinking through the solitariness of life, I've been contemplating what it means to influence people. My church likes to talk about the vision of knowing God, helping others to know God, and helping others to help others to know God. (And yes, for the math geeks reading, that is a recursive vision.)

I'll try and blog again about my contemplativeness after it cools.