Sometimes, I find it very challenging to tell my real friends apart from those who are not my friends, especially online. They may look a lot alike; especially on Facebook and other social networking sites. We “friend” each other all the time but what does that really mean? It supposes a relationship but what is that relationship about? We have become internet friends, is that good enough?
Recently, I have made the mistake of reaching out to internet friends for advice and/or support. I suppose I thought it was like telling your life story to the stranger sitting next to you on a plane. You don’t have to see their faces online which might be showing disapproval and you can vent your personal issues ad nauseum. Only, there is a gigantic difference; what goes on the internet lasts forever and these people may not really be your friends.
Writing this happiness blog is complicated at times. It requires regular personal life examination and searching for answers to my life’s dilemmas but we all need to be conscious of the limitations of introspection for improvement.
On the internet, people can be brutally honest, or mean, or uncaring, or wonderful, or thoughtful but it all sounds the same. Without the intonation and stress of live speech, do you really know how something is said or how it is meant? Also, life messages are delivered in Twitter size statements; how much can you read into that? Ann Landers and Dear Abby would cringe at the text message sized retort to life’s major concerns.
Personally, I find that it is my own fault for asking for advice. Advice is something personal and it really requires someone understanding multiple factors related to the situation to make an informed suggestion. How well does this person know you today? Many of our network friends are older and from your past, not your present. Their knowledge of you ended when you or they moved away. It is not their fault that they see you capable of making the mistakes of a 12 year old when that was the last time they saw you in person. Or perhaps they know you from your job and they cannot tell the difference between personal issues and work issues caused by the job and the collective people in that work group?
Some of our network friends are just networking, looking for clients, jobs, and not “friends.” The problem I see is with the word “friend.” I think we need some new online vocabulary to distinguish these interactions or maybe we need to be careful with “friending” acquaintances.
Either way, I am going to return to asking just my face to face friends for advice. This way when they frown at my suggestion and tell me “I’m nuts for doing something;” I can see it and react because they care enough to tell me something important that may require more than 145 characters in an online message. I like this decision; I think I’ll tweet this to all my friends…
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