I made my Christmas shopping list this morning and I made a realization, though not at all surprising if you knew me well, that made me ponder on the extent of my involvement in all things social: I have kept in touch with very few people over the years. What made me come to this conclusion? I was able to finish my holiday list in about 30 seconds - family and friends included.

While people may always quote the cliche that its not in the quantity of friends one has, but in the quality, I still find it mildly disturbingto realize that I've virtually lost contact with the people I considered good friends from a period of 5 years ago and less. And it's not that i've burned bridges with all of them, but more of a matter of just being too preoccupied with other things at the time.

Of course, the blame for this can only be pointed at me. I know that if i'd only made the time and given enough effort, I wouldn't be at the current state i'm in regarding friendships. No, I am not feeling pitiful at myself for the lack of depth in my social network...yet. I even consider myself lucky for having what set of friends I keep myself up to speed with. They are all gems in my book. But I guess it wouldn't hurt to have a few more meaningful connections. Although the upside is that you have fewer names to remember for the holidays, the trade-off could be a life-time of pondering why you let a what would have been good friendship slip away because you were too lazy to do anything about it...