"Friended"

"You're the friend of a friend...sure.  (Accepted)"  Many of us find ourselves "meeting" people this way.  Though it often only means adding another name to your list of "friends", it can also give promises to a real relationship.  It seems to develop, like any other friendship, by exchanging common thoughts and experiences.  You begin to trust them and believe in their persona; articulate, outspoken, and witty.  Months go by and you start to think that this individual is worth actually meeting and look forward to the concrete friendship.  When that day finally comes, there's a quiet awkwardness when you realize that the person you thought you knew, wasn't that at all.  You find them to be short for words and have little to nothing in common, leading to disappointment.  All you can think is you'd been fooled and lied to, and come to despise the person.  To this day I wonder if our meeting had led to the end of our friendship, or if there was even a friendship to begin with.

                The internet does more than provide information, it also brings people together through social networks and online forums.  Through these sites a person can post their life story, views, and interests, but even with all of this personal information it's hard to say you know them after viewing their profile.  It would seem we're meant to build relationships off of these networks, and has thus affected  how we socialize, but one cannot say you're truly living the human experience when there's a lack of shared experiences, tones, and body language.  It's essential to our personal growth that we be able to meet and have a face to face conversation to get to know each other; no editing, no screen names, no solitude behind a computer, just real talk.

WC: 300