Grammar purist that I am, I never thought I'd see
the day when I would use "friend" as a verb. Then Facebook
came into my life.
For the uninitiated, Facebook
is a "social networking" site that allows you to interact
with … well, friends. And family. And colleagues. And frien-emies
from your club days. And high school mates you lost touch with
over the years. And… and…
You get the picture. The beauty of Facebook and similar sites
is that they bring your entire social network together in one
place. You need only "friend" someone - add them
to your list of friends - and you can automatically follow the
minutia of their daily lives without actually having to drop them
an email or pick up the phone. It's pretty great, because while
you may not have enough in common with someone from third grade
to justify an ongoing email correspondence, you may still be interested
in following their links to funny videos or to download their
favorite cheesecake recipe.
On the other hand… sometimes there is a reason you fell
out of touch with these people in the first place. Their status
updates, including tidbits about becoming a "fan" or
a "friend" of a politician, celebrity, or cause that
you abhor, can quickly bring home to you why you are no longer
friends in the 3-D world.
But that's okay. Social networking sites are not about deep,
personal friendships. They're not even really about friends, in
the strictest sense of the word. Rather, they're about belonging,
and being part of a community. In the same way you don't have
to know or like everyone at a party in order to have a good time
(personally, I just need Chex Mix and white wine), you don't have
to be close to all of your Facebook "friends" to get
a lot out of the experience.
Last year's explosion of social networking websites like Facebook
and Twitter was a perfect illustration of Jupiter's dance with
Neptune in Aquarius (January 6, 2009 - January 18, 2010).
After all, Aquarius is the sign of friendship. Not the kind of
committed, intimate partnerships that are the purview of Libra
and Scorpio; rather, Aquarius' realm is community, networks,
people who on some level share our interests. We may have
shared the same grade school teachers, employment with a particular
company, or interest in a sport, career, or hobby. If we've crossed
paths with a person - even if we're just colleagues who once visited
one another's websites - that's the basis for an Aquarian relationship.
Facebook does provide the infrastructure to renew sweet old
connections that were once important to us. The other day,
an email interchange with a dear high school classmate and new
Facebook "friend" left me in happy tears. "Reconnecting
with you," I wrote to him, "is like reclaiming a little
bit of my heart." And it's true. We live in different cities
far away from one another, and our lives have become so different
that I doubt we'd see each other much if we suddenly found ourselves
living in the same town again. But that man, like so many of my
Facebook friends, retains custody of bits of my personal history.
Touching base with them returns me to myself.
But most of my Facebook connections are light, breezy, and fun.
Perhaps the distancing quality of computers allows us to extend
ourselves to one another cheerfully, without fear of being deeply
hurt or inveigled in a more demanding relationship. This intriguing
blend of goodwill and aloofness is one I often associate with
Aquarius. I'll never forget the time I was visiting a friend
(not an Aquarian, but someone with the Moon in the 11th house)
and went to the supermarket with him. I turned my back for a moment
and he had disappeared. I found him a few minutes later in the
next aisle, chattering warmly in animated Spanish (not his first
language) to a young couple. As we said goodbye and walked away,
I asked him who his friends were. "Oh, they're not friends
of mine," he answered. "I'd never seen them before in
my life!"
He'd "friended" them, you see, right there in the aisle
of a supermarket. It's likely he never saw them again, but that
wasn't the point of the interaction. Aquarius' talent lies
in those friendly connections with others who cross our paths
- the relational grease that keep society's gears moving smoothly
and that joins us in together in collective identity, purpose,
and responsibility.
Aquarius is a gregarious and social sign that is often misunderstood.
These people have a gift for making you feel like the most important
and fascinating person in the room, and then they're suddenly
gone, sometimes leaving hurt feelings in their wake. For me, the
key to enjoying Aquarius energy in my life is realizing that for
those few minutes, they really do think I'm fascinating,
and they do feel great friendship for me. And when they're gone
- well, maybe we've made a connection that will build into something
deeper over time. This has happened with a few of my Facebook
connections, who began as colleagues about whom I knew little
but are now real friends. Such bonds don't happen with everyone,
of course, but social networks of all kinds provide fertile soil
in which they might grow, if other conditions are right.
But even when they don't, I'm left with the feeling that an Aquarian
society - full of smiles and goodwill, and the sense that we're
all in this community, this supermarket, this world together -
would be a pretty happy one in which to live. So at this New
Moon in Aquarius, why not "friend" someone - whether
on Facebook, or in line at the supermarket. There's no obligation
to develop a life-long, symbiotic relationship with everyone you
meet - just the willingness to embrace everyone who crosses your
path as a fellow traveler.
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