Virtual Relationships

Here’s an email exchange I had last week:

From B:
I had lunch with C today. She told me to tell you hi. You are about to be the entire department over there…

From me:

That's right, I am!

From B:

Is that good or bad?

From me:

Definitely bad.
Who are you, by the way?

From B:

LOL. I am the bald guy who sits 3 cubes down from you.

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Is it me, or is it sad that most of us do not notice nor personally make a connection with our neighbors who surround us, while taking part in electronic communications constantly to people we’ll rarely if ever see in person? Or that in fact electronic communcations have all but totally taken the place of in-person contact?

A couple of months ago I wrote here about my kids seeing Santa and how I ran into a childhood friend who’d moved away and she was now living close by, so she asked for my contact information. She ended up texting her information into my phone from her cousin’s cell, and then I was to email her. Before I had the chance to do so, Lk dunked my phone into his cup of milk, erasing all my texts. I had to do a bit of detective work to find her email, but I did, and emailed her. Instead of suggesting a play date with our kids as we’d discussed, she has been spamming me with chain/joke emails ever since. We’ve not once gotten together.

I’m not blaming anyone. It’s all too easy with today’s capabilities for semi-agoraphobes like myself to associate with people virtually rather than personally. Email is a lot safer than the phone and far safer than in-person contact! And yet reading someone’s blog or email messages from them, when it overrides seeing them in person, is not a way to get to know someone better. When coupled with some real contact, it can enhance getting to know people, but let’s face it: virtual relationships have replaced a lot of real and meaningful contact.

Which is why, my friends, I won’t be getting on Facebook any time soon. I value my privacy and my free time too much for that right now. Internet boards, Facebook and the like creates too many imaginary friends and imaginary enemies. I’ve seen people get furious over internet postings, emails, Facebook chatter, and for what? If these same people actually met or talked in person, they may still not like one another, but at least we'd be forming that decision from a 3-dimensional experience.

Someone wrote an article recently about why he won’t join this so-called social networking site, and said, “Does Facebook really connect people? Doesn’t it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk?”

Another guy has written a hilarious article about it too, http://www.newsweek.com/id/183180
He finally got a wake up call and quit the site altogether.

See, it’s much easier to create an idea of someone, fantasy friendships and relationships, which inevitably lead to the obligation of “friending” everyone who sends out a request, and feeling unnecessarily offended if a request isn’t granted. The whole thing sounds a bit ridiculous to me, yet I realize with millions of people on Facebook, I’m probably one of the last holdouts…so be it.