MEADOR: Americans must look farther than TV for friendship

On a typically breezy fall day five years ago, I walked out my parents' front door to go for a short walk. It wasn't unusual. I did it almost every day.

But on this particular day, my soul was tired. Three years of loneliness at school and betrayal at church had reduced me to a hurt, confused 16-year-old whose heart was torn to ribbons.

So I walked out my parents' house, The Doors' "Break on Through" blasting in my headphones, unsure if I would make it back. As I crossed the first street, I told myself if I saw a car coming, I wouldn't move.

By the grace of God, the streets were empty that day.

Cliche as it might be, that was my life in high school.

While things would still get considerably worse for me – culminating in an exchange in which my former pastor told me, "Your spiritually barren state is entirely your own creation and is in no way the fault of the church," – I learned to get by.

The difference between the day I went for my walk and the day I spoke with my pastor? Eric Tonjes. Bart Moseman. Gray Ewing. These friends, and others like them, were my lifeline when my former pastor's words nearly crushed me, causing hurt feelings and out-of-control anger. These friends listened. They understood. They didn't judge.

But on that fall day, when the perpetually drunk Jim Morrison and I walked out the front door, I didn't have Eric, Bart or Gray to talk to. In fact, I didn't have a single close friend I could talk to about my struggles, leaving me with nothing but the neglect of classmates and the judgment of my fellow churchgoers.

The Beatles never wrote a truer word than, "I get by with a little help from my friends."

Recent studies suggest that, ironically enough, I wasn't alone in being lonely. According to a study in the 2006 issue of the "American Sociological Review," one in four Americans don't have a single close friend or confidant. And the majority only has two.

Additionally, the study found that 80 percent of the population confided in family alone – a 23 percent increase since 1985. Further, 9 percent reported they depend exclusively upon a spouse for relational support. As co-author Lynn Smith-Lovin of Duke University put it, "If something happens to that spouse or partner, you may have lost your safety net."

But it doesn't take a sociologist to deduce that we live in a society starved for relationships. One glance at "TV Guide" can tell us that. The recent proliferation of reality TV shows is just one example of our culture reaching out for human contact.

Consider the most recent season debut of "American Idol." Like every other season debut, this one featured the expected line of awful auditions, including a white (tone deaf) dude trying to sing Carrie Underwood.

The auditions follow the same track - the obligatory 15 seconds of horrendous, fingernails-on-chalkboard singing, Simon Cowell being a prick and the devastated singer having an emotional meltdown.

And that's the payoff.

In those crushing scenes, we see people at their most vulnerable.

To quote Heath Ledger's character Joker, "In their last moments, people show you who they really are."

We're not seeing the shot-down contestants in their last moments, but we are seeing them in their most vulnerable. And it's a similarly intimate picture.

Perhaps the most obvious example though is CBS' former hit "Big Brother," in which contestants lived in a state of perpetual observation, having every moment of every day monitored. Further, contestants on the show were encouraged to pour out every ounce of humanity they had in front of the camera.

In such a context, every fig leaf they try to hide behind gets torn away at some point. They're seen for who they really are - warts and all, as the saying goes.

And the American public eats up every minute of it.

Seeing people in such an authentic state is a form of the relational contact we long for, not because we all have some sadistic bent that makes us delight in pain or imperfection, but rather because as human beings made in God's image, we desire to exist in community, just as the God who made us does in what Christians call the Trinity.

It's also the sort of relational contact many of us seldom experience in our ordinary, day-to-day lives, as indicated by Smith-Lovin's study.

Between the dominance of suburbia, longer workdays, scarring experiences with communities like my old church and the advent of the iPod and other individual-focused gadgets, we've grown distant from each other. Oscar-winning film "Crash" nails it when the opening narration says, "People don't touch anymore. They just crash into each other."

As a culture we move at the pace of a runaway train, an accelerated pace that is unsustainable and personally alienating. We've grown disconnected from each other, lost in a haze of long work days, massive homes and personal prejudices. Now we're trying to find our way back to wholeness.

We're trying to find our safety nets.

Reality TV offers a faux hope - a false intimacy with strangers that we long to experience with our neighbors. But in the end, it's hollow. You can't confide in a TV program, no matter how much time you invest in it. That sort of relational connection only comes from patience, grace and time with people. And you'll need a hell of a lot of each if you want to get anywhere in your relationships.

But at some point, you learn about those things. Then all you can say is, "I get by with a little help from my friends."

Jake Meador is a junior English and history major. Reach him at jakemeador@dailynebraskan.com