Personalized Stationary

As someone who has always been quite shy, I love the internet.  I have always had trouble maintaining long term friendships because I just can not get over my fear of the telephone.  I can just about always convince myself that I’d be an inconvenience to whoever I was calling on.  Even when I allow myself to go so far as to make social plans, I often find myself with a sore throat or an upset stomach that inevitably requires me to cancel my plans.

I am shy.  My shrink says that I have “Social Anxiety Disorder”, although I don’t think that I’m all that crazy for disliking being packed into large volume discount stores with hoards of people who aren’t polite and who talk too loud.  Some may say that my father has the same thing.  He’s not great at the phone either.  In fact, we went for years barely speaking and only seeing one another on major holidays where the plans were essentially set in place by others.  

Then came the internet.  Email.

I now exchange regular emails with my father, keeping each other updated on the ups and down of life.  We probably talk about more on email than we would in person because there is a shield that you feel when you are sitting behind a computer monitor.

Similarly, I’m in a very content and happy relationship with someone that I love very much.. and who I met on the internet. 

I also have a fairly large group of very close friends – some from college days and some more recent.  The college friends I met through my boyfriend at the time, who I met on the internet.  I met them all “on email” before “in real life” as well.  There is a photo floating around of the group’s first big get together.. I need a copy of that.

I have another group of friends who I have met over various times throughout the past 6 years.  I met all of them through an online support group for couples/individuals dealing with infertility.  We’ve met “IRL” (in real life), and are quite close.

I’ve met a few people through my blog.  I now know them IRL, but the first interaction was online.

I’m not lonely.  I don’t spend much time at the computer when I’m not working.  However, when I need to contact someone, I will always shoot for the computer first.  Then there’s my cell phone.. I don’t use that for telephone calls.. I use it to sent txt messages.

It gets better.  Now we have Facebook.  Good lord, what has the world come to? While it is “fun” to catch up with people you went to high school with and find out you enjoy the same hobbies as the girl who used to shove you into a locker.. it’s social embarassment and hurt waiting to happen.  Nothing good can come from it.

I watch my “friend” list grow.  When you have a lot of friends, you feel important.  You feel like people care.  Right?  It’s this insane network that allows regular contact where I’m not sure that we, as a society, are ready for it.

Do I want to hear regular updates from my college boyfriend about how he and his wife are doing each step of the way while expecting their first child?  I would love to hear about it – but not through impersonal “status updates” that are intended for anyone and their mother to see.  I’d rather a letter on personal stationary with a hand written smiley face, or a doodle of an inside joke ( “ .| “ in this case).  I’d rather know that he was sharing this information with me because he wanted ME to be a part of his life.  Not because he once hit “accept friend” on a computer.

Another ex of mine is also on Facebook.  She and I never settled things on good terms.  In fact, there are probably still a lot of fairly hostile feelings on both sides that were put aside.  See, with time, pain fades.  Or at least that is what they say.  Of course, that assumes that time is passing where you aren’t viewing near constant updates on what type of cookies they are making with their kids.

To fuel the fire even more, for those who weren’t content with getting status updates on their long lost third cousin’s college roommate from his iPhone while he waits in line at the DMV, we can even Twitter.  If you don’t know what that means.. you’re lucky, and probably still sane!

I don’t know what the correct answer is to this question.  Is “Facebooking” a good thing?  It sure is fun.  It sure is cool to reconnect with people.  Where do we draw the line? 

There is a very large part of me that thinks that these social networking sites are social experiements just waiting to go wrong.  No good can come from them and someone will get hurt in the process. 

I’m going to go purchase some personalized stationary and a pen with purple ink... but not before I go update my Facebook status.

-Jen (Two Moms and a Baby)