What I Have Learned - Take Twenty-Seven

I have learned that people don't take enough time to actually get to know other people.

Most of you who read my blog belong to one type of social media network or another. We have our Facebook friends and our Twitter friends. We even claim to really care about them; their lives, their troubles, their happiness. But the other day, in a moment of chatting with one of my friends, I realized how little I knew about them, and they of me.

I have lived in San Antonio for almost four years now. I have made very few friends over this time. Mostly, I blame myself. I have never really made myself available or opened up enough to let people close. But even those I do consider friends, there is so much of my life they have no idea about. Little things, big things.

I always refer to my children by birth order number. And with that, even the friends I have made here don't know their names. Very few know if I have brothers or sisters, what I do for a living, or even something as simple as my favorite color. And in all honesty, I couldn't answer those questions about most of my friends here either.

So that makes me question what kind of a friend I really am, or any of us really are. Are we content to live our lives just knowing people on the surface, and never taking the time to really get to know them? And if I happen to know some of the deeper questions, do I know the answers from reading a blog or a Facebook page, or following you on Twitter, instead of taking the time to ask YOU. How impersonal of a society have we really become?

Next time you chat with that person you have spent months chatting with, ask them something that matters. Get to know WHO they are, not just what they are.