Glue Dot Culture
May 9, 2009 by Toni
Filed under Featured, Pop Culture
Recently, a friend broke up with me. There was no explanation, there was no conversation. My friend just stopped being friendly after 11 years of enjoyable and solid relationship.
What could I have done? What could I have said? Alas, even after making inquiry after inquiry, I received no response to voicemails , e-mails , or Facebook messages . I had to face it. I’d been dumped.
It saddens me greatly to see the passive aggressivity in our culture run rampant over relationships. The entitlement issues we have with respect to how we deem we are to be treated, and what we do if we are not treated that way are at epidemic proportions.
Since I’ve been doing a bit of reading on popular culture lately, the analogy of my failed friendship that came to mind was that of a glue dot. Glue dots are quick ways to stick stuff together, they are tiny pieces of thin circular sticky rubber used in crafting to hold things in place. They are easy to use and initially very strong, but they are not permanent adhesions (over time their tackiness degrades). Introduce any stress and the things they hold together typically come apart. My friend’s sudden cessation of communication reflects this; whatever stress he experienced, it was enough in his mind to pull us apart as easily as if we had been held together with a glue dot.
The longer I pondered this, the more I thought how unconscionable it seemed to just allow ourselves to degenerate into a culture that holds this view of community. Now I don’t mean to say it’s this way everywhere, but when those we claim to care about aren’t constantly making us feel Über special or good about ourselves; when they are not totally focused on our lives (because they, in fact, have lives of their own); when a friend expresses disparate honesty that doesn’t exactly meet our incessant need for approval, then it would seem that our our commitment to a "through thick and thin" relationship proves to be ephemeral at best.
As author Dick Staub puts it, "Today’s popular culture generally reveals that humans, despite our magnificent spiritual, intellectual, and imaginative capacities, have chosen to wade in the shallow but spiritually toxic waters of superficiality." In essence, we have become a culture of glue dots.
Sadly, the consequences of this type of glue dot mentality are throwaway relationships. This is obviously most clearly seen in the popularity of social networks. We have Facebook friends, Twitter followers, & MySpace micro-celebrity, and yet how many of us can honestly say we reach out to others on these venues with much sincerity or intent of commitment? Not enjoying someone’s updates? It’s just a click away to "unfriend" them.
Perhaps this is appropriate for online interaction, but do we really want the same spilling over into our face-to-face friendships? We need not squint long to see that the result of a desire to use relationships as entertainment in today’s popular culture reflects a radical diminishment of God’s image in all of us. In so doing, we damage own souls. Staub points out that, as a result, we experience is a lack of a deep sense of self which is instead replaced by façade where our identities are formed through the attachment of purely external features much like ornaments on a Christmas tree.
How can we avoid a glue dot mentality? Well, as always I have some suggestions. First, let’s purpose to dwell on the fact that commitment to community is as vital as healthy connective tissue in the body, and that the virtue of commitment to others is deeply valuable. The Creator had specific purpose for making us communal beings. As such, we should be intentional in protecting our relationships.
Second, let’s recommit to those who have invested in us, especially in light of stress. This year, let’s tell those that care about us that we are a "through thick and thin" kinda friend. Third, let’s take some time to focus on how we are a benefit to those friendships, rather than mainly focusing on the melioration they provide us.
Finally, if you don’t think any of this applies to you, it may be helpful to ask those you feel close to if they think you sport a glue dot mentality. You might be surprised. I was.
TL
Hi Toni,
Checked out your blog, and I love it. I don’t usually read blogs because I don’t want to waste my time (elitist, anyone?) with people’s ill-formed opinions. Yours, however, I will read, because you think well and are, in turn, teaching me to think well. Just wanted to send you a little electronic encouragement. Keep up the good work!
In Christ,
Ann
Toni,
Your essay is very thought provoking. I have also experienced glue-dot
relationships, but my experience has manifested in a less traumatic way;
my relationships often fail before they really get going. Specifically,
I mean regular relationships with other men. And by regular
relationships, I mean a frequent, repeating, one-on-one, intimate,
dependable and shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with another man. Just
to be clear, I am not discussing here male-male sexuality.
Why I am missing such a relationship? The answer is deceptively simple.
It is easiest to understand with a little bit of background. As a child,
my mom always told me to reach out if I wanted to do something social.
For example, if I wanted to play with a friend, I should call instead of
waiting for a call. Because of her encouragement, I always had
consistent social interactions with friends, and didn’t just sit alone
playing video gamez (although I did an unhealthy amount of that.) I also
enjoyed many close relationships with both guys and gals that shaped me
into a healthy social being. If I hadn’t listened to my mother, I doubt
I would have such fond memories of childhood because it was rare to get a
call from someone else. They weren’t doing anything better than I was,
but I believe they didn’t enjoy the same encouragement that I did.
As an adult, I have lost touch with the encouragement my mom so wisely
provided. The sad result is that I fail to reach out, and I have less
“friends” now. Indeed, I relate with wonderful couples from church, but
I lack a regular one-on-one relationship with a fellow man. I also fear
that without reaching out to lay stronger bonds, the relationships I have
had with couples from chruch will quickly dissolve over things as tiny as
schedule conflicts. I have already felt such dissolution in light of
several recent births among the couples of my small group. However, I
want to remain focused here on my relationships with fellow men beacuse I
feel that is an area that is solely my responsibility. Plus, I feel
confident in my wife’s amazing ability to boldly reach out and connect us
with other couples. I also avoid the topic of female relationships
because, for me, female relationships are strictly limited to relatives,
friends of my wife (where all interaction is supervised by my wife) and
professional relationships (all interaction must be business related).
Although some may disagree with my approach, I have decided to have no
female friends, and I plan on persisting in that way unless my wife is
called to Heaven before me.
So I have identified why I am “lonely.” That is, without male friends.
But what is preventing me from reaching out? Perhaps it is an inevitable
pitfall of all married men to lose touch with other men. That is
certainly true of my father, and if my wife is correct, her father as
well. Even accepting for this argument that such a view is true, it
certainly cannot be right beecause I have an easily identifiable hole in
my spiritual person for a strong male relationship? A “buddy.” To be
clear, I’m not talking about a Jesus-shaped hole. Rather, I’m talking
about providing the male aspects of God that a wife does not provide.
Assuming that it’s true that married men naturally tend to fall away from
healthy male relationships, the engineer in me demands to know why, so I
can solve what I view as an injustice. One possible cause, could be that
coordinating with a married man is much more difficult than coordinating
with a child. We are all busy, sure. But if that is why men are missing
out on filling spiritual holes, I cannot overemphasive that it is a sorry
excuse and not a justification. We all have to do yard work, take the
car in, research the next gadget to buy on Amazon, exercise, &c.
Reflecting on that list, however, reveals no concern so pressing as to
eschew building a close relationship with a fellow being, especially a
brother-in-Christ. Indeed, my truncated list of things-to-do suggests,
if anything, things we should do together. How much more fun is doing
yard work when you have a buddy? Being nerdy and talking gadgets?
Talking cars? For all married men, I encourage you to reflect on a
pre-marriage male relationship that you remember fondly. Do you miss
that today? I don’t think we should pass up an oppurtunity to build
strong male relationships. Just think, a married man is generally wiser,
more mature and more pecunious than a child. Accordingly, a strong male
relationship between two married men can be even richer in terms of
accountability, mentoring and what I believe is important for all men:
accomplishment.
My advice to anyone feeling a stone in their shoe after reading the
foregoing, is to be more proactive. A simple statement. How can it be
done? Reflect on my last paragraph. I identified “being busy” as the
biggest roadblock I face to healthy male relationships. To overcome
being busy, I just need to place on a scale the importance of what I am
busy with against all the benefits I enumerated of a healthy male
relationship. It is simply what my mother did years ago. She said I
could sit around and be bored, or I could pick up the phone and reach for
that relationship that made me feel strong and manly. The only
difference now is that I have less periods of pure boredom. When you are
bored, it’s easy to be encouraged to pick up the phone. It’s trickier to
stop in your busy-ness and reach out to your buddy. As men, we must then
look at what we are doing to keep ourselves busy and begin a process of
re-prioritizing.
Sincerely,
Walter