When I hooked up to Facebook last year it was initially to view my colleagues pictures, but I needed to create a profile. Thereafter I was exposed to the facebook phenomenon.
The Good
My ex E found me one week later, I had been trying for years to contact him but we seemed to have lost each other, as it turns out he was searching for me too. That was like a present from the universe for me. We emailed non-stop for weeks, I was so happy to be in contact with him again.
Today I found my old housemate and very good friend EV and another friend O on the site. EV and I go back to the days of my ex P, that I mentioned on yesterday's blog. I found out from her that P is now married! (Begin emotional closure process now...). Yesterday while reminscing i realised that I haven't had a friend like EV for a long time. We lived together. We both partied with P. She used to arrive at my bedroom on a Saturday morning with tea and questions about the socials of the night before and we would exchange stories and then go out shopping and lunching until the next party. She was like family, and we had this banter and familiar innuendo that started all over again in the emails today. Turns out she has been living in Switzerland the last 5 years and I had no idea. We are planning to hook up for a good few nights on the town soon.
I have also contacted a few more friends on the site that are invaluable in my life.
The Bad
Facebook stress, aka the friend quota issue. It seems like the aim of facebookers is to see who has the most friends on Facebook. You may start out innocently (as I did) thinking well, I don't really want to reconnect with my old high school friends that I can clearly see are on Facebook, but who at this stage of my life do not need to know all the details about me as yet. It is a social dilemma. I'm not ready for it. It's like having a reunion imposed on you immediately with no time to prepare.
As for current friends, as I am in a different country and network far less than before, as well as being unemployed and in my thirties, the chances of my having a lot of current friends (who are on facebook) are pretty slim, hence the small accurate number of my friends who I am actually in regular contact with. I believe I am being more honest because I know well over a 100 people on the site, I just don't want to befriend them right now. However everyone has jumped onto the friend wagon and anyone who has few friends suddenly looks a bit strange.
Second stress in the form of contacting old friends: I took the plunge this morning, had not slept all night researching and writing and in my insomniac state decided what the hell, I emailed a whole bunch of people I knew. Turns out only the ones I thought would reply have so far, and one other, a guy I dated in 2000, who was happy to send me a few emails today and then suddenly went all wierd and stopped, and I have a funny feeling he won't be contacting me anymore. All of this is rather embarrassing. It's really scary emailing people you haven't heard of in ages and then being ignored, because now they not only know you know they are there but they don't want to know you as well.
And the truth is, it could just be that they haven't checked their profile yet or something but you feel stupid anyway.
I'm not sure how this is going to pan out, but I have resolved to try to contact as many people as I know and that way at least I'll know who not to contact for future reference.
Technology stress, who would have thought...?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment