jamie doom

This past week, while Alf was visiting, I ran into two friends I haven’t seen some time, Jersey Jake and Smoking Dave. It was refreshing to see both of them. Both are amazing storytellers, which goes a long way in my book; and both like to use obscure, smart references when telling a story. Jake hiked the Appalachian Trail this year and somehow, someway Smoking Dave has now found himself on the wrong side of the law. He became a police officer in the sleepy town of Montreat, North Carolina a couple of months ago. He may be the only decent human being/police officer I know.

But still, I have been home for over a year and have hung out with these guys less than three times total. And they are some good friends. But seeing them gave me pause. Why don’t I “keep up?” Why am I such a bad friend?

I am a strange bird, no doubt. Usually when I travel or live in a different place, after I leave that place, I break all ties cleanly. Why do I do this? Am I that lazy? Is that normal? I guess it is normal, but I know lots of people who stay in touch with a myriad of people. But it’s not like people are killing themselves to stay in touch with me. They do a little bit better than I, but overall most of my friends are lazy, no-good sacks like me.

I talk to one person (and to him rarely) from high school. The only friend I still have from college is Mike. I don’t keep in contact with anybody I have met in my other travels or the other places I have lived in America, despite the fact I’m sure I promised them I would. Most of my friends in Asheville, save two, are people I have known only since I have moved back home from China. It’s much easier to make new friends than to go back and try to keep up with old ones.

I’m a social butterfly. People love me, they really do. So making friends has never been a problem. Keeping them, evidently, is another story. One reason I think I have trouble keeping friends is that I am not trustworthy, so you can’t tell me secrets. While other friends will come running when there is trouble, I’ve managed to consistently let people down. And frankly, my whole wisecracking-about-anything-that-anyone-says shtick gets annoying after awhile. Also, I may hit on your girlfriend if you aren’t in room.

Having said all that, one of the interesting things about moving back to the States after I have been in China is how well I carried on those relationships. I made a lot of friends with expats while I was there. In the past year or so that I have been home, I have hung out with Greg and Alf from Hanzhou. I went to Greg’s sister’s house in Atlanta, and Alf came to see me here in Asheville. It was a week that took some years (hopefully just the worst ones at the end) off our lives. I talk to Erin Shutty (of the now defunct but legendary shutty.net) from Shaoxing via Email. I talk to John Pasden and Carl Lorimer, both living in Shanghai, on MSN Messenger. And occasionally I chat for a minute with Julie, from my days in Baisha, on the phone or via text messaging (and if her husband is reading this, hey man, I’m just kidding). I have lost contact with a lot more people in China, though. However, overall, given my track record, this is a monumental accomplishment for me.

Why have I done a better job with the China people? I attribute it to three factors.

#1 Technology: Let’s face it; the world is a smaller place now. It’s annoyingly easy for people to contact you due to E-mail, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, QQ, text messaging, cell phones, and comment boxes on blogs. So if you make any effort at all to keep up with any of this stuff, it’s just easier to keep in touch. Seriously, it’s a lot harder to keep people out these days. Ted Kaczynski would have a lot harder time finding peace and quiet so he could write his manifesto if he were operating in these times.

#2 The China Freak Factor: Yep, I lived in China and had the same experience as all of the above people. Now I plan on living a lot more varied places and experiencing a lot more cool things before I die (at age 38), but for now we have a very rare shared experience. We all lived in China for some time. Some, like John and Carl, may never leave. Others like Alf, Greg, and I have taken a break. But when we get together, we all trade in a sort of intellectual currency that can only be possessed by China Expats. It’s like we share some sort of huge inside joke that is only remotely funny to us.

For instance while Alf was here, he and I were in lots of settings when there were lots of people sitting around talking, and he and I would of course discuss stuff that happened in China, or Alf would catch me up on the latest Hangzhou gossip. None of my other friends really cared to listen in, and we didn’t care if they did. To be fair, one reason that Alf clung to me in these setting is that I didn’t introduce him to a ton of cool people while he was in Asheville. Alf could either talk to me about China or talk about Chicago with an ex-stripper whose baby’s daddy was in prison there.

When I was visiting Greg, we often found ourselves away from the festivities, out on the back porch, talking about China. Greg also spent a lot of the time calling me a coward because I blamed him for my smoking addiction. Let me say publicly here, Greg didn’t make me smoke cigarettes. Now we can move on.

But, for now, he and I are addicted to a far more life threatening thing: China. This is what we talk about. This is who we are. As time goes by, and maybe we don’t make it back to China, will this wane? Certainly, but for now, until we become marine biologists, this is who we are. I don’t want to be a China geek. I like talking about it, but I don’t want to define my existence by a country I lived in for less than a year and a half.

But has being a quasi-China geek rendered me useless in having normal conversations and with people who have never had tape worms or hot pots? I really hope not. And apart from my lack of much female interaction these days, nothing indicates I am no longer the social una grande persona that I have always been.

3# These people are actually my friends. It could be the most far fetched reason to keep in touch. But I actually think I benefit from these relationships. Well, most of them. One day when Greg and I run the literary world, everybody else will be forced to agree that truly ours is a friendship that has changed the world. All of us, despite being very mean to each other are actually pretty good friends and pretty good people to have around.

Now, if only Russell would E-mail me.