Communication

For the myriad of communication tools we have at our disposal, it should be easy to stay in touch with friends. Apart from being one of the nation's with the highest penetration of handphones, internet access thereby spanning options like e-mail, MSN messager, Yahoo messager and the like, everyday we seem to be losing touch with old friends. As I was scrolling down my phone book the other day, I realise my most frequently dialled numbers are colleagues, customers and a handful of friends that I see virtually every week, oh and my mum of course. Yet some of the have-not-been-dialled-since-half-a-million-years are some of my closest friends, or at least have been. Is it really so hard to keep in touch with friends these days?

Sometimes we claim we are busy, busy with work, dating, family commitments and the like, but I think it just boils down to plain laziness. I think nobody ever has time for others, they make time. Work does consume most of our waking hours but surely not all. Otherwise television stations would not really get much ratings even for the top blockbusters. Or neither will our cafes be flooded with aimless people sitting around complaining that life in Singapore is boring.

The thing about true friends though, is that you could have met each other for the first time in months or even years and the conversation still flows, as though you are in contact with each other everyday. Just now I had dinner with an old friend whom I have not met for maybe 2 years. Yet it was as though the clock had turned back 4 years during the times when we met every week, talked on the phone all the time. Still totally comfortable with each other and talking about anything under the sun and she reminded me of some of my old crappy jokes that I never considered worthly of retention. As though nothing had changed, except we were both working adults as opposed to individuals living off our parents.

Maybe I should resolve to meet up with one old friend a week for the next 2 months. Hmm, sounds kinda familiar, I think I made this resolve before. Strange sense of deja vu. Maybe I am in the habit of losing friends. Am I? If I have not met up with you for sometime, drop me a line or a mail.

Cheers