It’s been awhile since I’ve posted, been pretty busy with work and school and a number of things. But lately I’ve noticed a pretty awful trend. People’s listening (or reading, as it may be over the internet) skills have greatly diminished. People aren’t paying attention, they don’t care, or they they don’t bother to give an extra little bit of time to hear someone else through. It makes me wonder what is important to people nowadays. Obviously not friendship!

But then again… It seems that the people who are callous, obnoxious, and couldn’t care less about other people seem to have oodles of friends. While people who would drop their plans to talk to someone (ie, me) seem to have to grasp at straws to keep friends. WHY?! It just doesn’t make any sense!

I’ve noticed this in two different ways over the past few weeks:

IRL (or real life): I have very few IRL friends. This wouldn’t bother me near as much if the bulk of them were close by. My high school friends are probably the best friends I’ll ever have (If you’re reading this, I heart you guys!), and I wish I could see/talk to them more often. Whoever said that you meet your bestest friends in college lied. People in college are more selfish, self-absorbed, and party-hardy than the people I went to high school with!! Actually, SOME of the people I went to high school with turned into these “college people” but my close friends did not. Only one went on to college and she hasn’t changed into one. But most of the friends I’ve had IRL in college have either a) been too “busy” for me, b) got mad when they realized they had to care about me and not just vent 24/7 and c) pretended they liked me but never invited me along with them. These are the types of people that I’ve met since being a university student 2 years ago. I’ve resolved myself to surfing the net and making friends that way (including a wonderful boyfriend). This brings me to the second topic.

Online People: Most of the people that I talk to on a regular basis are from this sector. Most of the time they are just as lonely as I am, or bored, or what have you. Some of them I get along with great, obviously we can’t hang out which really sucks (and is probably why none have let me down), but not all people I’ve met online are great. Of course, that is to be expected. But even common courtesy sometimes isn’t given. If you post something on a forum or elsewhere, most of the time you at least want people to acknowledge it, or say that you’re a good addition to the online environment. If people can’t be that considerate, just put down your idea and carry on with whatever they were doing, then what exactly is the point? I’m not talking about THorum here (recently that seems to be another matter entirely), but other online forums and even msn chat.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, you should always take the time to listen to other people. You don’t know how much that little gesture can help.