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I didn't realize what friendship was till last week when a FB friend I had never met, died.
We met about 2 years ago when she joined a music group I administer. We hit it off immediately and shared political views, exchanged musical ideas, talked about our husbands and children, and every day life... getting old, recipes, she made me laugh so much. When you exchange written messages with someone, and you take the time to express yourself and your thoughts and feelings within those messages, you achieve a much higher level of intimacy than, say, when you chat to the lady across the road about your dandelions. I work at home so I don't have that much connection to the outside world, and I never had an easy time making friends when i did work at an office for almost 20 years. There are a handful of close FB friends I have, who I've never met, because they live halfway around the world.
When I found out that she had died, I was very upset, and still feel shocked and a bit lost without her. My husband does his own private eye-rolling at this, as I'm sure some of you will, but the friendship was bonafide, and did not have to be validated by a real life meeting.
Sorry for the loss of your friend.
That said, I don't feel the need to roll my eyes at you; but I do think it's fascinating that this expanded your circle of interest with this woman. For my part, the converse usually happens; friends of mine have longer discussions (or "discussions"; more like "monologues") on their Facebook posts, than they ever have in emails and one-on-one messages with me; and tend to think they've done all their catching-up with anyone who might be interested in what is happening with their life by a group blast. If I PM real life friends on FB they don't stick around long for the exchange.
Personally, I disagree with this "Group blast" methodology and find it impersonal, which is probably why I'm not often on FB. I can see the point if you're trying to do the annual "Christmas letter" tradition type thing - it is handy, as I learned when I tried to type longer messages to individual friends - but the existence of FB for me, has oddly means that the majority of my interactions with friends take the point of "Christmas letter". I thought this the other day, when I was breezy, charming, and jokey with a friend for 2-3 paragraphs in a private email; and her response to me was a bland, bloodless single sentence.
Screw FB. I've never had a FB account, and never will.
FB "friends" do not count as real friends - these "relationships" are meaningless.
It's a sad state of affairs when people think that someone they've never met in person is a "friend". Ludicrous, and just another illustration of the over-dependence on technology that plagues many people in our society.
Last edited by The Big Lebowski Dude; 07-21-2016 at 10:22 PM..
FB "friends" do not count as real friends - these "relationships" are meaningless.
It's a sad state of affairs when people think that someone they've never met in person is a "friend". Ludicrous, and just another illustration of the over-dependence on technology that plagues many people in our society.
Whether you use facebook or not, you do understand that many of us populate our social media accounts with people we actually do have personal, real life relationships, right? This thread alone shows a range of users...those who routinely add people they've never met to their friends lists, and those who ONLY add people they actually know.
Those in the latter camp have facebook friends who are in fact actual friends (and family members).
FB "friends" do not count as real friends - these "relationships" are meaningless.
It's a sad state of affairs when people think that someone they've never met in person is a "friend". Ludicrous, and just another illustration of the over-dependence on technology that plagues many people in our society.
I've never had a FB account, either. However, there are times when you can become very close to people even though you've never met them in person. I've met a few people online that I consider to be friends; I just didn't meet them on FB. I dislike facebook very much and would only become a member if I needed to do so in order to promote a business that I create. IMO, facebook is too impersonal to be a good place to meet real friends, but it's not impossible for that to happen--even at a place like that.
Screw FB. I've never had a FB account, and never will.
FB "friends" do not count as real friends - these "relationships" are meaningless.
Yes, they DO count as real friends, because they are.
Have you read any of the posts? Many of us limit facebook to family, friends, and people we actually know in real life. Those relationships are NOT meaningless.
I know who every single person is on my Facebook account and yes I consider all of them to be friends. I wish I had time to hang out with every single one of them but I don't.
Facebook gives me a chance to hang out with them in a different way. Maybe social media has redefined the word friendship? I know it's made my life richer.
I now have real interactions and relationships and conversations with extended family members who I barely knew growing up, because they lived very far away, were generationally removed, etc.
That's been very rewarding. I doubt those relationships would have been otherwise fostered. I don't think my mom's cousin and I would have probably started up a letter-writing campaign, etc.
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