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June 29 2006
mir
may have to quit my job and
move back to Chicago.
I read last week in USA Today,
with no real surprise, that a recent
survey showed that average Americans
are losing their friends.
"In 1985, the average American had
three people in whom to confide mat-
ters that were important to them, says
a [June 22] study in ... American
Sociological Review," the story
stated. "In 2004, that number dropped
to two, and one in four had no close
confidants at all."
In 1985, I was work-
ing full-time in a fern bar
populated by commodity
traders, nurses, yuppies,
sports fans and drunks;
several hundred of my cli-
ents considered me a close
confidant.
Had a bad day trading?
A spat with your spouse?
A spat with your spouse's
boyfriend?
Come see Uncle Harry.
He'll listen to your woes;
he'll make you a drink to take the
edge off, as long as it doesn't require
a blender. Blenders sound too harsh
during the day unless you're on a
cruise ship.
You can confide in Uncle Harry
because he's not really paying atten-
tion. Sure, he's nodding
in all the right places,
but that's because he's
been trained that way.
Even if he gave you
advice, would you
remember it? You've
been drinking, and you
got sent home in a cab.
Of course not. You'd
just wake up the next morning with a
bad hangover, the radio alarm blasting
Careless Whisper by Wham! and all
you're doing is trying to tie that skinny
tie without throwing up on your shoes.
You'd forget all about the trouble that
led you to visit Uncle Harry.
Which means that he did his job.
You got to unload your troubles for a
lot less than the cost of a therapist —
the bar made money, Heineken made
money, and Uncle Harry got to fill his
tip jar without using the blender.
All right. Before the angry letters
start piling up from all the therapists,
Al Anon members and Wham! fans:
I'm not condoning alcohol as a sub-
stitute for working out your problems,
I'm only exaggerating to make a point.
I wasn't really a close friend to my
regulars, but at least I saw them in
person for a considerable length of
time. It wasn't all about drinking,
either. It was a community, a neigh-
borhood meeting place — a social
setting that occasionally required a
phone call to the police, but it was a
lot better than what you call havin
being a friend. That daily check in via
a two-sentence e-mail or three-minute
cell phone call.
We brought this on ourselves and
we shouldn't be surprised
or upset by it. It is what
it is, and your kids are
learning the same lesson.
"People have more
entertainment tools such
as TV, iPods and comput-
ers, so they can stay home
and tune out. But some
new trends, such as online
social networking, may
help counter the effect,
says sociologist Barry
Wellman of the University
of Toronto, according to the story.
Yeah, and those "social networkers"
are meeting your kids on mySpace.
corn, at the risk of having that rather
uncomfortable interview with NBC
Dateline"To Catch a Predator" cor-
respondent Chris Hansen, before the
So tell your kids to put down
the Game Boy, turn off the
computer, and go outside and
play with a neighbor.
paddy wagon pulls up.
So tell your kids to put down the
Game Boy, turn off the computer, and
go outside and play with a neighbor.
Getting some social face time in an
unstructured environment is the key
to making friends.
That's the long-term solution; but
for the short term, I might move back
to my old job, making friends the
old-fashioned way — by being a close
confidant for money.
It will be my contribution to human-
ity. It's not as big a contribution as
Warren Buffet's, but I could be his
friend.
❑
Harry Kirsbaum's e-mail address is
hkirsbaum@thejewishnews.com .