|
I've never been particularly good at making or keeping friends... I can be a little standoffish (though I don't mean to be) and I am nearly phobically shy... Speaking to someone I've never met face-to-face can make me sick to my stomach. I'm also one of those people whose personality craves honesty, and I give honesty in return... I'd rather hear the brutal truth than a gentle white lie, and unfortunately, I tend to give the brutal truth more often than I pad things with comforting prevarication.
I'm not good with the everyday maintenance things that a friendship requires, either.... I don't do telephones, I can't stand gossip or idle chatter about nothing. I know these are my own shortcomings, and I try to balance them out, but sometimes my friendships suffer if my friends aren't ready to not hear from me for days at a time.
The internet has given me an outlet. I do not have the same phobic shyness when I'm talking face-to-computer-to-face. And the internet opens up a world of people with whom I have a connection, common interests and personalities and ideas. Its been fascinating meeting so many different people.
For all the people I meet, though, there are only a very few with whom I've found a real connection.... And some of those people I have been friends with since the early 90s when we first got a computer and internet connection. I have friends on the 'net that I've known longer than some of my face-to-face friends. I've met most of them, but there are one or two, some I've known more than 10 years, that I've never met face-to-face. That doesn't make them any less important or vital to my life....
I think the internet is a wonderful tool, and a gateway to a world of experiences and people... Caution and good sense should always prevail, just like in face to face relationships, but on the whole its something I would sorely miss if it were gone.
__________________
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
~Sinclair Lewis
|