Welcome to Sunday Morn Musings.  This is my weekly free fall – writing about whatever it is that occupies the mind on a Sunday Morn.  The idea of a “no topic” posting is the stepchild to a blog I used to write:  Four O’Clock Thursdays which is still up there if you want to check it out – more likely, I will repurpose and republish some of those posts here over time.  On Sunday Morn Musings the topic may be about blogging but just as likely it may not.

The longer we live the more friends we have, or do we?

Is it just that the longer we live, the more people we know?  And if we know more people then do we have more friends?  But what about “Old Friends?”

Some of the people we know are business associates, friends of parents and friends of  relatives.   Some of the people we know belong to the same association, the same fitness club, the same mastermind group.  Some are friends, and a very few are old friends.

An”Old Friend” has little to do with age although it has its roots in that association.  An old friend is a special unspoken honor conferred by two people, two families, or more upon each other and when one is in need the other will go to the ends of the earth to meet that need.  It is an old Chinese custom not easily conferred, but once done carries on from generation to generation.  Bluntly put, it is as much about friendship as we know it as it is about powerful connections, it is after all who you know that makes the difference.

How did I get on this topic?  This week I had lunch with an “old friend.”  Yes we have known each other long enough to be old friends in the traditional sense, but we are also “old friends” in the Chinese definition as well and it has nothing to do with the fact that he is Chinese.  In one of James Clavell’s books, Noble House,  Ian Straun Dunross is saved from financial ruin by an improbable outwardly seeming adversary, a high ranking aparatchik in the Chinese  communist regime.  Ian turns to him as a last resort and is greeted as an “old friend.”

The idea behind old friend is that old friends are the best kind.  You first met as youngsters, fashioned a friendship and over the growing years laughed, cried, fought with and for each other.  Your word was gold.  The more the years, the stronger the tie.  Not too many develop such a friendship.  New friendships formed may be strong but they do not have the little things hardwired into their very sinews, little things like unconditional loyalty and trust.  Lucky are those  to have a handful, if that many, of such old friends; most never do.

Over sable fish and gnocchi we did some catch up – family and business.   On parting, Nelson gave me the greatest compliment of all, he said “Valentina, I am honored to have such an old friend as you.”  I wished that I had said it first.  It is true.

I knoodled over old friend as I drove home.  I even took a long route, via my favorite ocean shore drive, Point Grey and then over past UBC  to ponder on it.   My thoughts turned to  the Monday night previous.

Regular readers here know that Monday night is my weekly Internet Marketing Mastermind meeting.  Matt was speaking.    Matt is the expert on social media and he was talking about Facebook with a membership of some 250 milliion and growing.  What he was saying was that we should not accept every invite to be a “friend” only from those that we know, put the others into a holding pattern, eventually you can always move them from one group to the other but only if you want, only when you get to know them should you allow them entry to your small but solid and trusted circle of “friends.”  It’s not in the numbers, but in the quality of your relationship which may blossom into a friendship – or not.

Facebook, he told us, has 11 year olds as members.  They develop connections, then relationships and some of those may blossom into friendships.  Hmm, I thought, so Old Friend may have a different complexion in meaning to them than it does to the traditional Chinese.  Matt thinks that this group will be the first highly connected group of people, and therefore will wield a great deal of power.  In ten year’s time they will have grown their network to include all corners of the world, all manners of people, rising stars connected to captains of industry, influencers, decision makers, dissidents, champions, and the list goes on.  Six degrees of separation will be more like one, or two at most.

The idea is mind boggling.  I know people who know people by which I mean, that with the right introduction you will be given special treatment be that at a restaurant, a clothing store, a realtor or perhaps a good accountant.  I am not such a person.  Even though I was raised in the orient and indeed my father always stressed connections – it’s not just an Asian thing, but European as well – I came to Canada in my early twenties.  Here you did not need to have a good connection to get the right plumber, a doctor, or a fish monger who would help you pick out the best fish.  I learned to shop at the supermarkets where most everything was packaged,  paid full price  unless it was officially on sale.  Bargaining was not done and jobs were obtained on your own merit.  Everything was above board, people lined up in orderly fashion whether to get on the bus or wait their turn to pay at the checkout counter.  What you saw was what you got – or so I was led to believe and naive enough to accept.

Things have changed since I first came here.  Even if shopping at a high end jeweler  “is this the best you can do” is a standard question, better yet if you know the owner of the store or have someone give you a personal introduction, someone who may have old friend status with the owner.

Today’s young people are far more savvy and consciously go out to develop a wider circle of friends – several circles in fact.  I venture that as the years pile on one after the other, the interconnected numbers will be staggering, like a chain link fence.  My hunch is that some of the links will have a familiar ring, that of an “old friend” – at least I hope so.