Why Can't We Be Friends?

The social media world has changed how we think and feel about different things, about people, music movies and various topics. We create groups and join pages of our favorite things, we connect to people who wouldn't normally give us the time of day and it's funny, we make these amazing connections through social media but when we run into each other on the street, we tend to act like the person doesn't exist.

When we were kids back in the 1990s, which in retrospect seems more like the 1800s, we didn't have a choice but to make friends with each other in the neighborhood because the alternative was sitting at home bored out of mind. We hit the door at sunrise and didn't come home until the call for dinner and even then it was eaten in a record time and out the door until the street lights came on.

It seemed though, once middle school hit, the dynamic changed and we were forced to make friends outside the neighborhood and suddenly we were lumped into a clique, some of us fell on our face, while others thrived and become cool and the envy of everyone else.

After high school, when you make that promise to be friends forever but drift apart as soon as the summer's over, you're expected to make a whole new crop of friends but it's hard because you can't find the same common bond you had as you did before or if you do, it's limited.

Because I grew up with mainly adults and had limited interactions with kids outside the neighborhood and my cousins, I learned at an early age that I related better to adults and that I fit better, I could carry on a conversation better with someone older than someone my actual age.

For some reason, I just don't feel entirely comfortable, like the expectation is so much different and I'm supposed to act a different way like Jekyll and Hyde type situation, I realize that as someone nearing 30 I should behave a certain way and the moments to act stupid are becoming few and far between but I also realize, I don't want to be the person who everyone looks to as a chucklehead, for lack of a better term.

My aunt Mame has consistently pointed out I was born in the wrong decade, that I should have been born in the 1920s or the 1960s because I tend to follow the trends of the past and identify better with that than I do. My father says the same thing. That I had been born and raised during the 1960s, I probably would have been front and center at all the protests and Woodstock as well.

They said this because at an age where most of my generation was into the remake of 90210 and Gossip Girl, I was reading Valley of the Dolls and watching Rhoda reruns. I admit then and now, I was a weird kid.

But because of social media, I managed to find a group of people who share the same passion for the classics as I do and It's kind of cool to say I have a friend who lives in Germany and all over the world. It's interesting the different dynamic between culture in the States and overseas and how we approach things so differently.

Do I wish I had more in common with people my age? Of course, but then again, I like that I'm an individual who thinks outside the box.

Do you find it's hard to identify with people your age? Are you more comfortable on social media than the real world?