Thinking at 3am on a Saturday morning

I have a small circle of friends online, an even smaller circle of friends I talk to on a very regular basis, probably only four. I like the closeness this brings between friendships. However, sometimes people are away for extended periods of time or for some reason don't appear to want to talk to you even when it's the early hours of the morning and you think the alternative must be talking to nobody. It's at these times I wish I had a wider circle of friends I could talk to, it's easy to feel alone and when you are used to just always talking to certain people, when that stops, you feel a little bit lost. Dale is special to me, out of anyone I've ever known, he is the one person I know will always want to talk to me, who never seems to get bored of me and if he's about, I know I have someone who'll never blank me. It's such a comfort to feel that confident about a friendship.

Other friends don't really instill the same confidence. Perhaps Dale and I are just more alike than anybody else I know. I think I know deep down that my other friends like me and want to talk to me, perhaps not so frequently, but I have doubts sometimes, maybe that's just me being paranoid. The problem is, in this online bubble that we are all in, we all spend way too much time on computers, the time slowly passes and the routine is to talk to certain people. Because the day passes slowly, if somebody stops talking to you, sometimes only for one or two days, it can just suddenly feel like they don't want to know any longer. It's a world that didn't exist before broadband, I think people maybe had more perspective when thinking about their friendships, however this instant access, this constant contact locks us in and I certainly lose touch with reality. Is the reality after a couple of days that your friend no longer wants to be your friend? Probably not but I think because of the bubble, it feels like it and I'm not sure that's a mind set I can get out of. Sometimes I think just showing you want to talk to someone is enough to keep people happy. Do you ever stop and think sometimes that it's always me who initiates contact with somebody, who always says 'hello' first? Do you ever wonder sometimes if you stopped initiating contact, would your friend bother to keep contact with you? Is the fear that they wouldn't keep contact the primary reason you always say hello first?

I love speaking to the people I speak to on a regular basis, even when you sit on skype in virtual silence, nobody really having anything to say but still wanting to be around you. It's that feeling of friendship that I love about skype. It's also that feeling that makes me wish we didn't live so far apart. I also wish that I spoke to some friends on a much more regular basis than I currently do, I probably only talk to Ginger Chris on skype every six to eight weeks. I always enjoy talking to him, I think he might be my hero. Darren also is another who I wish would come and talk to me. I was so happy he came to the Isle of Wight. I thought he may be about a bit more afterwards to keep a closer bond, so far he's stayed hidden, only surfacing on twitter once and a while to call Beth a twat, or to say something equally as hilarious and something that makes me want to talk to him more.

I have my friend who never makes me doubt: Dale, I have my friends that make me paranoid: Pav, PJ. I have my friends I don't always talk to enough: Chris, John, Darren, Emily. I also have friends that I don't really know where I stand, probably that's you. I think all my friends are wonderful, perfect people who will probably move on an forget me over the next few years. It's happened to me a lot. I can't say it's a feeling that is anything but devastating, I also think it's something you can never prepare yourself for. I often wonder, on those occasions when you run in to an ex best friend, how time can make you strangers. How someone you talked to with such ease can turn into somebody you feel awkward talking to. It's just a horrible part of life. It's probably the reason I try so hard to cling on as best I can to the friendships I have.