When does an acquaintance become a friendship?
Why do some friendships last while others lapse?
When I joined the now extinct John Mayer Fan Club (Local 83) in 2004, I became acquainted with a group of ladies and a few guys, all of us connected by our love of Mayer. The adventures we had trying to secure concert tickets, meet up and coordinate concert attendance remain as some of my favorite memories.
We began as virtual acquaintances on a message board which is no longer. We created our own message boards, as our own informal fan club continued. As message boards became less than Facebook, we migrated to Facebook and many of us have remained in contact there.
Over the years, some of us have changed and our circumstances have changed. Jobs have been gained and lost, degrees have been conferred, husbands and boyfriends have come and gone, children have been born and are growing up.
And through it all, our love of John Mayer has remained, and our little informal fan club has remained in contact for almost 10 years.
What causes acquaintances to turn to friendships, and what causes those friendships to remain?
Even though we all love him, there has to be more than John Mayer holding us together.
Perhaps those of us who are drawn to the same artist have similar souls. Perhaps we understand each other and enjoy each other's company.
John Mayer is now touring for the first time in three years. Some of us will get together to attend his concerts. We watch as the front row and center seats, which used to be available to us through every presale, go to radio stations and event planners. And yet, we still come, though we are pushed off to the sides, literally. We make do with lesser seats than the fan club offered us, but we still try to get as close as we can to the stage. Usually the best we can do is a few rows back and off to the far left or right, and that's only if we log on at the moment the tickets go on sale -- right at 10 am through Ticketmaster. The precious front and center seats are never made available to us anymore.
John Mayer: We are glad you are back and that your voice has returned. We are your informal, formerly formal, nameless fan club. We are your friends, though you have only met some of us in passing at meet and greets, and observed us consistently on the front rows of your concerts a few years ago. Through our friendship with you, we have found friendships with each other that remain.
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