When I moved to the city I did not realize how difficult it would be to maintain friendships. I was one of the lucky ones too--all of my best friends moved to San Francisco with me. Even so, I did not realize how distant we had all become until I saw everyone at homecoming weekend. These were the type of friends I used to see everyday in the kitchen or get coffee with on a random Sunday morning. They were my best friends.

Accepting this situation was not an option. I wanted to know what was causing the distance? I did not believe what everyone said, "life after college is just different and you just have to deal with losing friendships...even when they live in the same city." I asked myself two fundamental questions: "what was the definition of true friendship?" and "what was causing me to not live up to that?" In order to shed light on the reason, I decided to make a humorous but telling quiz about true friendship...

1. If you are sick a close friend...

a. Checks-in on Foursquare (http://foursquare.com/) at your favorite restaurant and @ replies you saying, "Wish you were here"

b. Stops by with soup from your favorite restaurant

c. She is super busy and there is no way her schedule can afford any type of deviation (or at least that is what she says)

2. If you say you miss hanging out a close friend...

a. Makes an effort to make actual plans (in the physical world)

b. Writes on your Facebook wall and sends you a virtual gift of bunnies

c. Asks you to create an avatar on Second Life or IMVU (http://www.imvu.com/) to catch up

3. On your birthday a close friend...

a. Sets up a Skype date where she sings you happy birthday (she lives four blocks away)

b. Aggregates all your past locations on Goawalla (http://gowalla.com/) so you can optimize where your fake passport can get stamped

c. Coordinates with all your friends and surprises you with an impromptu birthday dinner

4. When you are planning to launch a company a close friend...(based on true story)

a. Accommodates to when you are free to hangout and sets up a night on the town with your closest friends (complete with lemon drop shots)

b. Comes over and ties ribbon on 500 t-shirts

c. Uses a competitor’s service (http://plancast.com) to RSVP that they are attending your launch party

5. When you are having a bad day a close friend...

a. "Likes" all your status updates on Facebook

b. Takes you on a virtual shopping trip on Plurchase (http://www.plurchase.com/)

c. Picks you up in a real car where you shop in a real store and buy real clothes

So I think you can see my point. And if you don't, this is my point: maintaining real or meaningful friendships do require a physical component (if you live in the same city at least). What I found was that my friends had no problem keeping "connected" on Facebook--it was almost as if I never had to speak to them because I knew everything that was going on in their lives. Even staying connected via other virtual channels (Twitter, Ping, Gchat etc.) was all easy and really low maintenance.

But that was kind of the problem technology was replacing physical interaction. I am not saying that these are not useful (please disregard the mockery of the quiz) more so that technology needs to be used in conjunction with physical, real-world interactions. So how can we become better at this? I could give you a laundry list of things to do...but I thought I would give you one concrete tool to help you maintain your friendships better. Yes, it is kind of ironic that the solution is a technical service.

Enter Go Tribal. Go Tribal makes getting friends together easier. We understand that you are busy. We understand that schedules never align. We understand that planning something as informal as getting drinks or brunch should be simple and right now it is impossible. I know I have definitely had the struggle of countless email chains and a million text messages just to discuss where to go for dinner.With Go Tribal you can easily see when your friends are free to get together and use our simple collaboration tool to figure out where to go or what to do. Moreover, you can also see where and what everyone else is up to within your network. Check it out here: http://gotribal.com.

So here is the caveat, my company is still developing this service. We need your advice and direction. So please let us know how we can better serve you. Our ultimate vision is to create simple technology to help you maintain your friendships in the physical world.

<3

S

P.S. So if you are wondering how you scored...you are a good friend if you answered: B, A, C, B, C. Just kidding :)