The social media has changed the over all meaning or usage of the word friend and that scares me. Facebook wants to make me believe that all the people I have added there are my friends? I have to be honest with myself and possibly a lot of people most of these contacts are acquaintances or people I know or don’t know. I am not condemning the Internet or social media, that would be blasphemy because I am a part of more than one online community and I would feel honored if I could consider some of the amazing people I had the opportunity to get to know online my friends. But sadly I haven’t even met them. They let me be a part of their lives via the twitter feed they post or through their facebook profiles or their amazing and inspiring blogs.
Even in real life many people can’t be considered real friends. A nice tweet came my way but sadly I forgot who sent it. It said ‘A friend is a person you can call after a year and talk like it was yesterday!’
Friends? What does a person qualify to be my friend? A topic I spent a long time thinking about and now it is important for everyone who may get mentioned below to know that I am not setting out to hurt you! I value everything you say, write or do!
Let me start with BiancaLuL she is a fantastic girl I met while twittering. She is part of the German Lupus Selfhelpnetwork , well a member and so we kinda run in the same circle. I learned a lot about her through our connection on twitter and in later stages on facebook. Not only Lupus connects us we found out that we both have a love for Handball (the german version.). Sadly we haven’t met yet but maybe someday because I have family near her place and I myself live in a touristic region in southern germany. (Bianca this is an invitation, I am moonlighting as a tourist guide ;) )
But is she a friend? Facebook and Twitter would like me to name her that. On that note what is that system on Twitter? I follow your tweets you follow mine and that makes us friends? Sorry but I think it isn’t like that… we can be acquaintances who keep each other updated through twitter.
But it isn’t only Bianca who has this ‘fate’ in my head. I would love to consider her a friend but there is one important part missing in our connection. We haven’t met and I never talked to her in person and that is an integral part to a friendship for me. Not only the connection via internet. Sadly for me I can never really think of some amazing people out there as my friends and I want you to get to know them too!
They are Christine ‘The Spoon Lady’ [bydls.com] , Tiffany [TiffanyandLupus] and Kimberly [ChroniclysILLy] and all the other Lupus warriors in my twitter list!
These three ladies seriously inspired me again and brought me to the point to refresh my activities with the Lupus Network in Germany. Due to my studies at the university and other life struggles I had let down my efforts to a point where I wasn’t helping anymore (bad girl I know!) Thank you for brining me back on track!
As much as I want to say you are my friends, my heart wants to but my head wont let me … YET! If I am ever in the states I’ll tell you and if you let me I’ll visit you or you come visit me and we will see if we are compatible in real life!
Okay so what makes a friend?
A friend is the person I can talk to about everything, on the phone, in a café or else but I have to have met that person face to face! (In the same space not only via a webcam!)
Please remember this wasn’t meant to hurt you!
Sound off below!
No comments:
Post a Comment