I must say how much I enjoy Facebook. I’m not all about being a friend “collector” – I don’t care how many people are my “friends.” I just love the daily communication I have with people from all over the world. Some are very far away. Some I haven’t seen in twenty years or longer. Some live across the street. Some are family members. Some I’ve never even met.
Usually if someone “friends” me on FB, I accept. I mean, I don’t think it’s very nice to say, Um, no thank you. I don’t want to be friends. But I think you’ve gotta draw the line at strangers – we have to have some friends in common at least. I’ve “unfriended” a few people now and again… usually because I couldn’t stand all their status updates. (I know you can just turn them off, but often these people are kinda meh in my life… so out they go.) I do believe there are many out there who need some sort of medication though. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
I like having these little tidbits of information about what my peeps are up to during their days. I like reading the “things about me” stuff. I’m as interested in the good things, the mundane, the bad days, the humorous stuff, the poignant stuff. I’ve seen the pics from the weddings, and the births, the work projects, the birthday parties… and I just love seeing what goes on in the day-to-day. It’s not because I’m so much of a voyeur – I participate plenty – but I think it’s mainly because I just wish good things for everyone I know. I like seeing people do well. I hate learning of bad times, but sometimes a short, sincere comment followed by a virtual hug (which may be the best I can do for a friend in Miami or Paris or Sydney from here) is just enough to let a person know that I’m thinking of them. Because I am.
I have many, many swirling thoughts about my peeps. Sometimes we have looooong discussions about politics or sex or silliness that end up being both riotous and interesting, because I like to think I can tell a lot about a person by his or her sense of humor. Some people don’t have one at all. (These people are not what I’d consider to be close friends, but that’s okay too.) I’ve lived in the same city with some people for years, but only really came to know them on FB. It’s interesting to me what people will do/say/post about about their lives/activities/feelings in this realm. I freaking love it. I think people are my biggest interest, other than sex or food but I suppose it always comes back to people in any respect. People make me curious.
There are good handful of people I’ve never met in person who wish me a good morning almost every single day. Sometimes we even phone each other. (This is a SERIOUSLY big deal for me, as I hate the phone very much, and practically dread when it rings – but that has nothing to do with the person on the other end. It’s complicated.) Sometimes these calls are from France. And my French darling and I talk about… food, and life, and love for a few minutes, and then we go forth in our lives. Some friends worry when I’ve been offline for more than a few days and threaten to send an ambulance to my door. I think that’s funny. And awesome. And loving. One day we will visit. And then we will dance and whip out our boobies or something. It’s just like that.
There are some people who think relationships created in cyberspace are false, or can never actually be genuine. All I can say is, they’ve never met my friends. I have some AMAZING people in my life, and I feel like my heart gets a little bit wider every day. Maybe it’s because of what I put out in the world. Whatever it is, I get a shitload of love back. I mean, one hundred-fold.
This morning I read a friend’s status update, and I quickly copy/pasted the message into my status update bar that read like this:
Let’s see how honest FB friends are…Leave a ONE WORD comment that you think describes me. It can only be one word. No more. Then copy and paste this on your wall so that I may leave a word about you. This should be interesting:)
I was just thinking, Hmmmm… Facebook fun this morning… cool. I pasted it in, and within a few minutes, I had some nice responses… I got that aw, shucks feeling inside. I love my peeps.
Moving on with my day, I didn’t have a chance to have another good look on FB for a while, but this is what I saw when I came back:
Sweetheart!
Sassy
Deserving
Bright (in all senses of the word)
Supportive
Witty
Creative
Sunshine
Srumpdelicious
Supafly!
can this be done in German?
fab-fucking-lious
crazysexycool!
tenacious
scrumptchulescent
Unicornrainbowprance
You’re vivacious darling!!
dangerous
Pretty-Bad.
Inspiring
supercalifragolisticexpealadocious!!!!!!!!!
gay
powerful
Hip
Mahvelous!
lovable
fiesty
Stunning!
beautiful (in all ways) xx
creative
Friend
These are the responses that came. And I realise that some of those are not exactly words… The unicorn thing was from my sister – we totally play tackle-’n'-cackle on FB every day. Four of those comments are from people I have yet to meet face to face. Seven of these people I haven’t seen in ten or twenty years, but we speak on FB almost daily. South Carolina. Calgary. New York. Italy. San Francisco. Germany. Everywhere. I think that’s soooo freaking cool.
Twitter is a bit more of a trick, but I’m trying to crack it. It’s kinda like trying to hang with the cool kids at school, making comments every so often, trying not to sound lame, except you’re never sure anyone’s really talking to you… it feels like seventh grade sometimes, in a bad way. I’m not going to be all hurt about it, like I was back then though. It’s just a new social toy for me, and I think I like it, because I’m a completely social animal. There’s a BIG world out there, and I’m meeting some really fabulous people – many with awesome blogs I love to read. In fact, I crossed lights with someone recently, someone just dripping in awesomesauce, whom I believe is kindred and bosom, though not close geographically. I know she knows who she is.
Oh, and I think I have a new Twitter boyfriend who I’m pretty sure is a vampire. This is almost as good as kissing strange men. Which I love to do.
Man-o-man, how I dig my peeps! And my love for them is completely real.
G.G.
