Friendships - what I want to tell Keegan

When I spend time with Keegan, more often than not now he tells be about the drama's that are happening at school with his friends or if he likes a girl and she likes him etc.  It does make me smile and I'm please to say that he does make friends much easier than I ever did when I was at school and probably even today.

I did a post a while ago about unsocial media and how I think its done more harm than I believe it ever was intended.  Not that I believe it was created to ever mess things up.  But then again, if someone was to create a computer game that proved to be massively successful, then odds on people would be addicted to it and therein it would have a negative effect in getting that person out into the fresh air and meeting new people etc.

So Keegan said that when he gets to being 13 that he wants to have a Facebook account.  Of course I told him that he would need to be careful and gave him the short talk on how online, anybody can be anybody they choose to be.  Its the desire to protect him from all the crap which I know is out there, potentially laying in wait for him.  But I also know that I can't protect him from everything and in some respects I shouldn't as most of our learning experiences in life come from mistakes that we've all made.  If you haven't learnt from them then you are doomed to make them repeatedly until you do.

Its a whole new political dynamic being at school these days.  Popularity is still there and will always continue to drive people's behaviours and views on others.  I want to tell Keegan that its not about the number of friends that you do have, its about the quality of them which really matters. 

In my 45 years (so far) on this mud ball called Earth I do have more experience in these things than Keegan does, both good and bad. 

Sometimes I can get a bit sceptical about things and when with people, I look at how they are when they are with me, what they talk about and whom they talk about and just assume that if they're doing that when I'm in the room then its not too far a stretch for them to also be talking about me when I'm not there.

I want to tell Keegan that he wont like everyone and not everyone will like him, and that is OK.  He's good enough as he is and shouldn't change only to lose himself to gain someone's acceptance.  Similarly he shouldn't ask anyone to change so he likes them better. 

Unfortunately there will be those people of all ages that are only nice to your face and the moment you're not around, well, thats when you get dragged through the mud.  I tell Keegan then that unfortunately their life is so boring they need to make themselves feel better by putting down someone else.

I've had things said to me and about me.  I hear the "about me" ones from those I can trust and it makes me despair.  I've been called "weird" more often than I can remember now and maybe I am to them, or it could be the adage that if someone cannot control you then they try to control how others perceive you.  Personally speaking, if someone has a problem with me then they really should tell it to my face instead of to others.  The closer someone gets to me, the more walls I take down that are there to protect me and for lack of a better analogy, them from the real me.  I have friends I've told some deep stuff to and others I have on varying levels of closeness.  Doesn't mean I like them any less but I still choose to only let people know about me the stuff I want them to know.

I want to tell Keegan that a friend will back you up when you need backing up, but a true friend will also tell you you're wrong when you are wrong.  OK it can get frustrating to be constantly disagreed with and I know people like that.

I want to tell Keegan that the only person he needs to be like is him because that person is good enough if not great enough to make his way through life.  He's not me, I'm not him and that's OK.  I'm a walking scatter graph of emotions and characteristics.  I've been told I'm too focused, too random, too serious, not serious enough, that I overthink things (a common one) or I don't give enough thought, that I'm over sensitive, I'm insensitive, strong, weak, intelligent, an idiot, motivated, lazy, complimentary,  disparaging, chatty and too quiet.  All those are off the top of my head.  I don't want Keegan to do as well as me, I want him to be better than me.  I can get him part of the way there but the rest of the journey he needs to do on his own.

They say that a picture paints a thousand words, but this video by Trent Shelton really hammers it home.  Its a bit too deep for a 12 year old to get and I'd not intentionally show it to Keegan although in the several hours a week he spend on YouTube I'd not be surprised if he knows who this guy is.  But suffice to say there are quite a few things said in it that really resonated with me and to be honest it brought a tear to my eye

"If all you had to offer was friendship, who would you still, be able to call your friend?"