"VIRTUAL FRIENDS"

Social networks are not my favorite past time. Instant messaging, Myspace, Facebook, they are all ways to display all you can about you, to complete strangers and friends, and then become vulnerable when these "virtual relationships" don't end up being the best thing you had hoped for. I guess nothing is a substitute for people who are real friends, people who care about you for who you are rather than a default picture, people who will tell you the truth when it's the last thing you want to hear and the first thing you need to hear.

I kept believing that you could create something that was just what it was all along. You loose faith in people when you can't communicate. You loose faith when promises you make to try to fix things are broken almost as soon as they are made. You feel embarrassed, and foolish. You wish people didn't react the way they do, but what else can they do. They are only looking at words on a screen, or comments forwarded to their cell phone. They aren't looking at your facial expressions to see the way you really feel. And they aren't hearing the inflections in your voice to hear the melodic cues you are giving in your speech. So why would someone care?

You also wish that you didn't react the way you did, but what else could you have done, when you are so disappointed and frustrated, that you want to tell someone what you are thinking, but you can't type fast enough to get every thought across before they begin typing something to take you off track of your thoughts, and then you get even more frustrated, and need to explain what you are thinking or feeling, again with no emotional idea of facial cues to give or receive, no inflections in voice to give an idea to the listener how your mood is elevated, or diminished, no way to see through the looking glass as to what the person on the other end of the conversation is really reading into what you are typing, or reading something you don't really mean... contextually, they are looking at one thing that they are focusing on, and you are trying to get across a point with the lack of all these sensory cues. It is impossible to find peace in all this two dimensional words on a screen instead of face to face communication.

Yeah, people argue in person. People argue on the phone, and on the internet. People argue while driving, while working, while making dinner, while doing anything. People have interpersonal turmoil. That is not a problem. You can walk away, or hang up the phone, or quit your job, or throw the food across the room, or anything while arguing. But people making up is rarely possible when you are blocked from being seen by the person on the other end of the internet connection, or deleted from their buddy list. You can totally throw away anything at whim. Or in this case, anyone.

Do you get attached too easily? Yeah, when I put energy into any kind of relationship with someone, giving of myself, interpersonal moments you share, or a part of you that you don't share with others, you feel so much more comfortable sharing with your new "friend" only to find that this all meant so much less to them than to you. To find that you meant so much less to them than they mean to you. Virtual Friends are not a substitution for actual interpersonal relationships. But on the other hand, people need to be aware that there is an actual person on the other side of the connection, with real feelings, with real emotions, who cares about you as much or more than you can care about them. And if you are at all caring, you will think about that before you tread all over their heart. The expenditure of energy into developing a relationship of any kind is quite expensive. Especially when that energy is tossed aside or deleted or lost in cyberspace.