I just had a wonderful afternoon with a good childhood friend as we sipped lattés and caught up on each other’s lives. We hadn’t seen each other in nine years and obviously had a lot of stories and laughter to share… All of this was thanks to facebook. But, as I’m about to shout the praises of facebook from the rooftops, it made me start wondering how all of these great friendships fade away and why it takes the completely impersonal Internet to reunite us.
It’s easy to think about how losing touch happens. All it really takes is a small lack of effort and then whoosh… life just flies by. I couldn’t believe it had been nine years. But as we sat there recounting some of the highlights of that near decade, sure enough, a lot has happened in those action packed years.
Networking sites like facebook are great because they allow you to re-connect with people you haven’t seen or talked to in years, but are you really reestablishing any friendship or just adding them to a list of online associates? Some of the people that I would consider friends I rarely see. Close relationships are whittled down to me knowing they hate Fridays, just got back from the gym or which cartoon character they are most like. Sometimes I do learn big things, like the time I found out a friend was in labor, had a family member who needed prayers or had extra tickets to tonight’s game.
Is this really as good as it gets? We take what we can get and are resigned to not needing the closeness that we once did? I don’t really know. Today’s not about that though… today is about the joys of reuniting with old friends, being able to pick up where we left off and catch up on great laughs. Today is about being grateful for the little things – like the impersonal-made-personal Internet.
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