interpersonal

dear friend who posts whiny, frustrated comments and pleas on facebook looking for drinking buddies, pleads for deep personal understanding and love (the masses):
at first I made the occasional attempt to reply to your mass postings, or to contact you directly, because I wanted to see you, and, frankly, because I felt bad for you. I felt negligent, as a friend, when I heard sad tails of you spending another night drinking alone. I felt I should make more of an attempt to spend time with you, a friend who was obviously feeling lonely and had time on their hands.

And then it dawned on me: you have not called me or texted me in years. you have made no attempt to see me, personally.You have not even posted on my own damn wall. You have, basically, shown no overtures of friendship, whilst turning facebook into a litany of guilt, an open personal ad for any random person you know well enough to "friend" to keep you company at a place you have already decided to patronize.

And here is the thing. Sometimes, I, too, desire to just drink with a group of people I barely know, or know somewhat, or am imparticular about my company and just want to be out. But I find that such groups build organically on those random days, if I make a small effort to maintain my friendships on the other days. Or they don't and then I call someone and go out and public, and like a rolling stone, hope to gather some warm fuzzy moss. Or I use facebook with low expectations "out at A tonight, with B and C! Join us!" and I enjoy person A's company, even if we drink along, all night.

SO what I am saying,  friend is: the reason no one joins you at bar A after lonely plea 1000 is because they are hanging out with specific person B at another bar, who bothered to send them a text, or call them, or in some way, shape, or form, received an invitation that implied someone wanted to hang out with THEM and not just anyone willing to show up.

It is fine to be to desire beer with acquaintances. But you might want to drop the personally wounded tone if you are unwilling to make even the smallest personal effort.