On being unfriendly

I went out for an hour long walk today.  Four people talked to me.  Why?  At what point did I become approachable?
I'm (half) kidding.  But really what I want to talk about is how one defines a friend, and how important (or unimportant) friends can be in your life.
Up until the last couple of years I had a lot of friends (and by "friends" I mean people that were in my life that I would see socially somewhat often).  I went to weddings, house parties, dinner dates, burlesque shows, coffees.  Sometimes I would go from one social outing directly to another.  Michael was always amazed by my social calendar, which often was so time consuming that I would become physically exhausted and have to take a few days off.
To juxtapose this, I remember talking to a couple who kept their skiff on our property at Lasqueti so that they could launch it and take it out to the boat they had moored in the bay.  After my dad died, Vic told me and my mom about how he would sometimes come onto the property and see my dad working on something in the yard and he would announce himself and try and engage in conversation and my dad would tell him to fuck off.  Vic did not (supposedly) take offense at this, and would continue on his merry way to his skiff.  I found this both hilarious and odd, at the time.
Another friend of mine recently celebrated a birthday and lamented to me that she was saddened about how few people wished her a happy birthday on Facebook.  I told her that she was being ridiculous and that FB is the last place you should go to gauge how much people do or do not love you.
Her FB experience was equivalent to my social life up until the last little while: whilst L thought she had some deep and lasting relationships because her and her friends updated pictures of their meals on the interwebs, so did I think that I had deep and lasting relationships because I made the time to entertain whoever was available to me, because meaningless, connectionless conversations are better than no conversations at all, n'est ce pas?
Fuck off.
I've finally turned the page.  Not having a lot of friends doesn't mean that you're unlikeable.  It means that you're choosy about who your friends are, and that time is precious.
And yes, this whole post has been prompted by something that has gotten stuck in my craw, as it were.  I'll leave it at that.
On the flip side, when I look at the handful of friends that I do have?  I'm so goddamn lucky to have them.
And that is the end of my really strange post.
Sincerely,
Duder