Meeting Friends :an excerpt from Get STARTED don’t quit book 2

Meeting Friends :an excerpt from Get STARTED don’t quit book 2  ( http://theyshallwalk.org/?p=1576 )

I remember as a kid a family was moving in a block away. My brother and I saw kid bikes and toys coming from the moving truck.  Then we saw two boys our size.  Who knew the age, the size was right.  We made a plan to go see them and introduce ourselves.  This was the first time I had planned to venture out with a specific goal to meet new people.  Everyone I had played with so far in my life had been introduced to me by: parents, teachers, neighbors or friends I already had.  These two boys were complete strangers and summer had just started.  I had a plan to meet them.

As we walked over toward the house all I could think about was that we would have some new friends to play with and how much fun we would have in the coming summer months.

When we got there I remember saying “Hello” the other boys responded with “Hi” and “Hi”.  I did not know what else to say and with simple innocence just said “Do you guys want to be friends?”  They agreed and we had a great summer with them joining the rest of our friends in all of our games until they had to move.

Years later I had purchased my own home and wanted to greet and meet the neighbors.  I simply walked door to door with a plan to introduce myself.  It was shocking how many people would not open the door.  I saw people who peeked between the curtains, opened the door a little and closed it quickly and I even witnessed some people who turned off the tv or radio.  I did meet a few neighbors who did become friends.  Many of the people who lived around my house never qualified to be called “neighbors” or “friends”.

A few years later we (my wife, adopted son, and two nephews and a niece) took a road trip to a family reunion in Whitefish Montana.  When we pulled to RV into a neighborhood a few blocks from whitefish lake where I played as a kid, a woman came running out of her house yelling.  “You X#$@%ing   @$%#^& people got no business here you need to go back to California where you came from and take your &%^$# RV with you!”.  As I stepped down from the RV and walk a couple of steps toward her I changed my smile to a look of disappointment and said “You’re not from around here are you?”  She was so shocked all she could say was “WHAT?!”.

I repeated “You’re not from around here are you?”  “What are you talking about?” she screamed “YOU are the one that is not from around here!” she insisted.  I smiled a little and said “You don’t act like you are from around here, when I was a child here I was taught that we welcome visitors and invite them to stay a spell.”

She dropped out of her anger mode and asked me about my childhood.  Then within minutes we had become friends and I was introducing my wife and kids.  In that moment I changed from an intruder to a friend.

Now on facebook I am confused about the friend requests and standards.  I keep getting a notice from them that “Your account is suspended from making friend requests for 30 days.  You have made friend requests to people you do not know”

In my whole life, just a few decades, I have ALWAYS made friend requests of people I don’t know.  I am very glad I have made that my policy for life.  I have met thousands of very amazing people that I would not have if I had restricted my social life to the rules of social media.

I will continue to make friend requests of people I do not know, that is how I have made so many friends in the real world.   I just will not make those requests on facebook.

My policy now is that you must make a friend request to me on facebook.  If you do I will probably accept because I do want to get to know you.  I hope that NO ONE will apply the facbook friends policy to real life.

Will Rogers A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.  https://www.facebook.com/monty.k.reed