Social-networking and the Intrinsic Value of an Online Identity to Those You Know in Real Life
Yesterday my wife had stumbled upon a social network created by a former student of the university that we used to attend. There were literally hundreds of students that we used to know during our time there. It was interesting to see how people’s lives had changed; to no surprise most people were married and had a few kids, some were married with no children and some were still single. Considering that was like 12 years ago is a bit sad you wonder what happened in between now and then but nonetheless.
True to form those who were married seemed to be living very successful lives. College is a strange experience; some people leave early on internships and get great jobs and never return, some never finish and still others have take the traditional route and go back to get other degrees and land a great job later on in life. You come in with a lot of people in your freshman class but only really get close to say maybe 30 of them; you meet others along the way and your memory retention is strained to it’s human limits, say about 100 people you are truly interested in keeping up with.
I started to write in college; I went there for something else entirely but was turned onto writing by a few people. Back then I was torn between poetry and creative writing; the latter because one of my teachers felt that I had a lot of potential because I was far more interested in writing stories than I was reading them and the former because a friend of mine had turned me onto it at the intersection of “maybe I like you a bit” and I know I can make some money here if I’m good at this.
Her poetry was pretty good actually, but I didn’t keep in touch with her and I don’t know if she made a lot of money by it. It was one of those comfortable arrangements where like, neither one of us really did anything about it, but the interest was still there all the up to the time when I saw her for what I knew would be the last time. It was also something I had fallen into in between relationships and something I couldn’t easily stop when I was supposed to concentrating on the person I was with; yet isn’t an experience I regret either.
Maybe I was getting that first taste of the lifestyle, a bit amoral at times, always torn between different commitments and relationships and obligations and too high and intoxicated to see the downside of having an obsession with writing. The scattered brain, the A.D.D., the highs and lows of why and how you write, arguing with other writers on principle, not really knowing who you are. So I started to distance myself from writing so much, focused on simple articles and essays or reflections like this one and for the first time was actually happy and content with it. I never really pursued it as a career choice of course, but it was always there when my other interests let me down.
At the end of the day there were like maybe 5, 10 people at most from the university I really care about. A few of my questions were answered browsing through that social network then there was that pull, one I consider as definitively unhealthy like what if I put my own profile on here or maybe I can see if anyone will respond to my own profile. Then I started thinking about how my life had changed since then, friendships and relationships that were a lot easier in my thirties than they were in my twenties. Now you can get in and out of situations without the messiness, failing to digress, a bit more clarity and a lot less confusion.
Needless to say I left that social network alone. Not that I won’t ever go back to it but there is no reason to post there. I like to move forward, meet new people and see what else is out there. Call it a fear of commitment, a fear of intimacy or what have you but I’m not really genuinely interested in what happened back then, curious of course but nothing that couldn’t or wouldn’t clear up with a few good conversations or emails. Plus I don’t want to come off as a hypocrite as I wrote a very compelling argument as to why you should leave the past in the past at another one of the websites I write for.
How have I changed since then; I am still with my second love of literature, and my initial interest, of technology, I am just now coming back around to. That’s great and all, and the University has changed and grown somewhat since then, perhaps I was coming in on a time of maturity and transition, a second wind for the school when I was attending. Sure Wilberforce is hundreds of years old, definitively the first HBCU ever but those were attributes that were lost on me during the time I walked the campus. What I’m really saying is that most of us have great friendships that were formed in ways that we couldn’t really control and micromanage at the time, we could pick up with them where we left off, or we can use those lessons learned to have truly healthy relationships in the future, rather than toxic ones all over again.
Everyone jumps at the chance to go back to where they were 20 years ago and use the knowledge and wisdom they have now to make up for what was lost of themselves in their past. Truth is, there isn’t any real future in doing that; such invalidates your past and suggests that nothing other than the perfectionist in you to want to perfect old relationships is at work; it’s an imperfect world, deal with it and move on. Is this what what social-networking has morphed into for some, a band-aid approach to erase the past? Sure we meet new people in some networks, but on others we want to put forth that good foot and add an extra dimension to relationships that are well enough left alone. People get to see the real you with flaws and all in real life, as they should and as life has intended for it to be in that it can truly teach you what you desperately need to learn about the person you’re becoming. You get to come off perfect online to people that already know you too well that you can’t really impress so much.
On the other hand it is perfectly normal to allow the social-network to confound us in this way because part of us needs something as well polished & idealistic that being online affords, with the perfection that only the anonymity of being online, even partially, affords us. We can choose the perfect words, as I can here, and say the perfect things, as I can here, and do what we otherwise would never be able to do. Perhaps the hundreds of articles that appear on different sites if you Google me is a testimony to how, through a committed aversion to social-networks, I have created that perfect identity of my own. That which allows me to show myself off to perfect strangers and catch new fans into the net of my prose, but which I don’t care too much if people who already know me read, and for the most part I doubt that too many of them are …
okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well ... 
Friendship, moving backwards, and the future we create for ourselves
Posted by: goofy328 on: June 2, 2008
Social-networking and the Intrinsic Value of an Online Identity to Those You Know in Real Life
Yesterday my wife had stumbled upon a social network created by a former student of the university that we used to attend. There were literally hundreds of students that we used to know during our time there. It was interesting to see how people’s lives had changed; to no surprise most people were married and had a few kids, some were married with no children and some were still single. Considering that was like 12 years ago is a bit sad you wonder what happened in between now and then but nonetheless.
True to form those who were married seemed to be living very successful lives. College is a strange experience; some people leave early on internships and get great jobs and never return, some never finish and still others have take the traditional route and go back to get other degrees and land a great job later on in life. You come in with a lot of people in your freshman class but only really get close to say maybe 30 of them; you meet others along the way and your memory retention is strained to it’s human limits, say about 100 people you are truly interested in keeping up with.
I started to write in college; I went there for something else entirely but was turned onto writing by a few people. Back then I was torn between poetry and creative writing; the latter because one of my teachers felt that I had a lot of potential because I was far more interested in writing stories than I was reading them and the former because a friend of mine had turned me onto it at the intersection of “maybe I like you a bit” and I know I can make some money here if I’m good at this.
Her poetry was pretty good actually, but I didn’t keep in touch with her and I don’t know if she made a lot of money by it. It was one of those comfortable arrangements where like, neither one of us really did anything about it, but the interest was still there all the up to the time when I saw her for what I knew would be the last time. It was also something I had fallen into in between relationships and something I couldn’t easily stop when I was supposed to concentrating on the person I was with; yet isn’t an experience I regret either.
Maybe I was getting that first taste of the lifestyle, a bit amoral at times, always torn between different commitments and relationships and obligations and too high and intoxicated to see the downside of having an obsession with writing. The scattered brain, the A.D.D., the highs and lows of why and how you write, arguing with other writers on principle, not really knowing who you are. So I started to distance myself from writing so much, focused on simple articles and essays or reflections like this one and for the first time was actually happy and content with it. I never really pursued it as a career choice of course, but it was always there when my other interests let me down.
At the end of the day there were like maybe 5, 10 people at most from the university I really care about. A few of my questions were answered browsing through that social network then there was that pull, one I consider as definitively unhealthy like what if I put my own profile on here or maybe I can see if anyone will respond to my own profile. Then I started thinking about how my life had changed since then, friendships and relationships that were a lot easier in my thirties than they were in my twenties. Now you can get in and out of situations without the messiness, failing to digress, a bit more clarity and a lot less confusion.
Needless to say I left that social network alone. Not that I won’t ever go back to it but there is no reason to post there. I like to move forward, meet new people and see what else is out there. Call it a fear of commitment, a fear of intimacy or what have you but I’m not really genuinely interested in what happened back then, curious of course but nothing that couldn’t or wouldn’t clear up with a few good conversations or emails. Plus I don’t want to come off as a hypocrite as I wrote a very compelling argument as to why you should leave the past in the past at another one of the websites I write for.
How have I changed since then; I am still with my second love of literature, and my initial interest, of technology, I am just now coming back around to. That’s great and all, and the University has changed and grown somewhat since then, perhaps I was coming in on a time of maturity and transition, a second wind for the school when I was attending. Sure Wilberforce is hundreds of years old, definitively the first HBCU ever but those were attributes that were lost on me during the time I walked the campus. What I’m really saying is that most of us have great friendships that were formed in ways that we couldn’t really control and micromanage at the time, we could pick up with them where we left off, or we can use those lessons learned to have truly healthy relationships in the future, rather than toxic ones all over again.
Everyone jumps at the chance to go back to where they were 20 years ago and use the knowledge and wisdom they have now to make up for what was lost of themselves in their past. Truth is, there isn’t any real future in doing that; such invalidates your past and suggests that nothing other than the perfectionist in you to want to perfect old relationships is at work; it’s an imperfect world, deal with it and move on. Is this what what social-networking has morphed into for some, a band-aid approach to erase the past? Sure we meet new people in some networks, but on others we want to put forth that good foot and add an extra dimension to relationships that are well enough left alone. People get to see the real you with flaws and all in real life, as they should and as life has intended for it to be in that it can truly teach you what you desperately need to learn about the person you’re becoming. You get to come off perfect online to people that already know you too well that you can’t really impress so much.
On the other hand it is perfectly normal to allow the social-network to confound us in this way because part of us needs something as well polished & idealistic that being online affords, with the perfection that only the anonymity of being online, even partially, affords us. We can choose the perfect words, as I can here, and say the perfect things, as I can here, and do what we otherwise would never be able to do. Perhaps the hundreds of articles that appear on different sites if you Google me is a testimony to how, through a committed aversion to social-networks, I have created that perfect identity of my own. That which allows me to show myself off to perfect strangers and catch new fans into the net of my prose, but which I don’t care too much if people who already know me read, and for the most part I doubt that too many of them are …