Soon after I moved to Irvine, California, I became "friends" with X, who was always happy to take a beach walk with me when I invited her, but never asked me to do something with her.
"I don't understand the `friends' who are happy to do things with me when I initiate it, but never initiate contact with me. What's going on there?" I asked X during one such beach walk.
"I know! I really hate that! What's wrong with those people?" exclaimed X animatedly. She clearly felt strongly about this, but didn't seem to realize that she was one of those people.
I decided to perform an experiment. I stopped inviting X, and waited to see if she would contact me. Of course, she didn't (or else I wouldn't have a story). For good measure, I tried the same experiment on Y, the one other "friend" I had made when I moved to Irvine, with the same result.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer about a year later.
"The only nice part is that when you have your surgery, everyone will bring you casseroles," said an East Coast friend who had earlier gotten a similar diagnosis.
After going through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance of the evidence that my concept of friendship didn't exist in Orange County, I decided to get more assertive about obtaining human contact, if not real friendship.
I started to accost people I met and ask them, "I'm going through culture shock from moving to the OC. People seem to have a different concept of friendship than I'm used to. What do I need to know, to help me survive here?"
The answers ranged (not very widely) from "everyone is self-absorbed" to "there's a lot of narcissism and bipolar disorder in the OC. It's from being too close to Hollywood" to "When I want to talk to a friend, I pick up the phone. When I want to be with a friend, I get on a plane."
Someone told me, "you can't have a dinner party here."
"Why not?" I asked. "Is it because too many invited guests say no?"
"Not just that. The main problem is that they don't respond."
"Doesn't that mean they're not coming?"
"Not necessarily."
"They'd just show up, without telling you in advance? Why would anyone do that?"
"They're waiting to see if something better comes along."
The woman I had this discussion with was so impressed with our similar views about friendship that she enthusiastically added, "I like you. I'm going to invite you to a dinner party."
My first thought was "How nice!" My next thought was, "Oh, no. If she does that, I'll have to reciprocate. What a burden. I don't want to throw a dinner party." I had been living in the OC long enough to have absorbed its laziness.
I never got that dinner invitation, perhaps because she and I didn't exchange names. Maybe she too didn't want the hassle.
When the "fighting for my life" stage of my medical adventure wound down, I realized that I should swallow my pride and end the experiment with the two "friends" I actually had. I went on a beach walk with X, and clothes shopping with Y, where I told them about my diagnosis. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but their fear about whether I'd expect something from them seemed more palpable than their empathy. They certainly didn't offer to bring me casseroles. Nor, I'm sorry to say, did I bring Y any casseroles when she was diagosed with breast cancer a few years later, though I did express my sympathy.
If I had to do it again, I'd have kept inviting X and Y when I wanted company, and not worried about whether they reciprocated. "Friendship" in Orange County is often transactional. If you want something, you ask for it. I'm surprised by how generously my neighbors respond to pleas for help from total strangers on the neighborhood listserv, from supplying crutches to giving rides to the hospital. Here, friends can be people who do things for you or with you, rather than people who care about you.