Cyber Friendship

I've been lucky enough to speak with and e-chat with a bunch of my friends lately. It's good to hear about what's going on in their lives. People are getting married. People are having children. People are moving and starting new jobs. My group of friends are all over the board. Facebook is a good tool to receive a snap shot of what's going on in someones life but it does not give you the full picture. It allows you to send your little paragraph or two commenting on some new post or some new picture you were notified of. How fucking sterile is that? Don't get me wrong, I think it has it's advantages but there is something so fucking impersonal about it but then I guess that's the point. Facebook is safe. You can change your mood, you can change your pictures, you can present this image of yourself that is true or untrue, it doesn't really matter. It's fucking facebook. You can have a few "friends" or 100's of friends. I've been thinking a lot about facebook ever since I changed my relationship status. It was so strange to change my fucking facebook relationship status. I did it quick to. It hurt when I hit that delete button, but I also found the whole situation to be absurd. I didn't' erase my feelings. I didn't erase my past. I'm not going to get rid of my facebook account even though I got rid of my myspace account a few months ago. I can't have two of these cyber-leeches in my life.

We look at these facebook sites and we think we know what people are up to but we really don't. You look at their photo's and their albums and you see smiling faces or crazy drunken photo's but that really doesn't tell us shit. I've seen some of the greatest smiles on some of the saddest folks I've ever known.

When I changed my relationship status to single I wish their would have been a area to write in this really fucking sucks! I'm sad and I'm losing one of my best friends. Words can not express how difficult it is to hit this delete button. But what do you get? A fucking heart that's split in half and reads "Chris's relationship status has changed." There should be a split heart with a pile of poop next to it. It should read "Chris's relationship status changed and he feels like shit now." The funny thing is is that all the people who ended up writing me to check up on me are the people who would have done so anyways because they have access to my blog address. Even though this blog is public I've only given the address out to people who are a "real" part of my life and not just the facebook part. I'm sound like I'm illing on facebook and I'm not trying to. I actually just logged off of the damn thing and there's this new feature that shows me what people who are not even my friends but are my friends friends are doing or have posted! What the fuck is that about? I could care less what my friends friends are doing but it pops up on my shit anyways...regardless if I want it. There's something kind of creepy about that.

Again, I enjoy seeing pictures of my friends kids and their vacation photos but their is something wrong about the access facebook gives you. It gives the illusion that people are friends when they really are not. "Hey, I found your name on facebook! I know I have not talked to you in years, but how the hell are you?" I think men more then women tend to use facebook in a predatory fashion. I've seen it happen and I've heard from more than a couple female friends who have told me stories. Just heard from my friend since kindergarten who is "married" that's right, married! One of her friends from college was macking on her through facebook.

I don't' know. Maybe I'm just bitter because I'm really missing being able to talk to someone who knows me so well. That's one of the best things about a long term relationship, if you're lucky, the other person has been paying some kind of attention to you and can give good advice when needed or is just an ear that you trust to listen. Or maybe I just miss her. No need to put a bunch of well placed words around that fact. Now I'm fucking stuck with friends like Alex! God help me, Alex? He has the attention span and patience of quick drying glue!

I miss letters. I miss writing letter with pen and paper. That takes commitment and dedication. Then you have to mail the letter, it shows you really care. I think I'm going to bring the art of the hand written letter back. "I'm bringing letters back!" Do you remember that feeling you get when you receive a hand written letter from someone. I'm not talking about cards although those are nice too. When someone writes something nice on a card it makes you feel warm inside but receiving a nice hand written letter for no particular reason at all is the best. Facebook is the opposite of a hand written letter. Facebook is the reality show of communications. It's fast, cheap, easy and unattached. That might just be why it's so damn popular.

I guess ever since I found out someone else has my name and my social security number I've been reflecting on who I am and what kind of person I want to be. I want to be the guy who still writes letters to people. Don't think the irony of me writing all of this on "my blog" is lost on me because it's not. But I'd like to think that this blog is a little bit more personal. If you're reading this blog then you probably know me well enough to know that I don't like bullshit and I do not bullshit on my blog. I save that for my facebook postings.