Making a friend

You can make friends almost anywhere. I made a new friend yesterday; online at work.

A lot of us at my company use Microsoft Messenger for quick communications (faster than email, cheaper than the phone). Yesterday I was updating the contact information for contacts that showed there had been changes, and I noticed on the contact information for one individual included a couple of book recommendations. One of the books recommended was Richard Dawkins 'The God Delusion'.

I have not read that book (it is on my every growing list of 'must read': I will need to live to be 150 to get it all read), but I am familiar with Dawkins' work, largely through a podcast that I listen to regularly. (See link at the end of this post.) Being a secular humanist can be tough and often very lonely, so seeing a recommendation like this immediately tweaked my interest, and I scooted off a message to Rik.

We had a lovely conversation, and I pointed him towards the Point of Inquiry podcast. He was thrilled to learn of it. As he flipped through that various episodes, he got more and more excited: "The Amazing Randi?" 'Oh, wow ... Anne Druyan!", and so on and so on.

We talked a bit about the difficulty of being a secular humanist in the midst of highly religious environments. I have a very large number of relations who are regular church goers and a sister who consults psychics for advice on her life with a degree of credulity that leaves me gasping. We talked about how we are both commonly addressed with the comment 'How can you not believe in anything?', to the point where both of are ready to scream. (He joked that I had probably heard the screams he voiced in the Maritimes at that question here in Quebec.)

We shared other discoveries with each other: favorite bands (he pointed me to an Arcade Fire video on uTube), best music for background to various work-related tasks, and generally had a very nice, if brief, sharing.

This is not the first work friend I have made through a connection to my peronal comment on Messenger. My first week at this job (August 2005) that comment read 'Free Cycle Rules'. Karen contacted me immediately to tell me she was also a fan of Free Cycle, and she and I have been chatting ever since. My friendship with her inspired me to blog: she has her own blog (http://sassymonkey.ca/) and also blogs on books for BlogHer.