If you are reading this, it means you're on the Internet. Hell, the fact that you can read it means that I'm on the Internet too. Hi! How are you? What brings you here? &c &c...
Whatever the Internet was originally conceived for, that premise is no longer the priority. Military intelligence network? A way of opening the Peer Review process out to potentially the entire world's Scientific community? Mind Control? Who knows! Actually, a lot of that still goes on, unbelievably. I know, right? In the mid-ninties, something else happened. Google was born. Now the entire world could look for the entire world while comparing stocks and shares, or whatever serious people use the Internet for. The order of the day in this rip-roaring 21st century, as I'm sure you're already aware as you read this from a holographic display in your flying car piloted by your robot butler, is Wikipedia, Instant Messaging, free Pornography, Twitter, reading newspapers, "Web logging" (Blog), and the real bread, onions and beer of this particular soliloquy (at least I think it's a soliloquy...): Social Networking. Oh, and comics.
What is the point of "Social Networking" then? Answers on the back of a postage stamp to the usual address as standard please (more on that story later). All of the major sites (or more accurately, the ones I know about/can be bothered to remember), Bebo MySpace and of course the mighty Facebook all follow the same pattern. You sign up, and depending on your real age and the service you're registering for give a real or fictionalised account of your date of birth, marital status, &c &c You fill in your sundry details and put up a picture of yourself so you may attract the people you know and can recognise you by sight to your page/profile and attract people you don't know with your handsome face, interesting hobbies, witty quotes and so on and so forth. This process continues until you can basically talk to anyone you want, and several people you don't want, with out actually speaking or committing word to page. Brilliant! All the hard work taken out of being sociable right? Wrong. You can't have a drink, be that coffee, alcohol or coffee with alcohol in it over the internet. You cannot share an impromptu song, or the smell of perfume or a scribble on a napkin or anything like that. Don't forget you can't make eye contact. Very important. Or a handshake, for that matter.
Am I just being old fashioned? I mean, sometimes it's the closest you can get to someone when they're on another continent, I guess. Or it's the middle of the night, and you happen to be on an IM service. False situations are created, I'm not saying they're all bad but they're still false. Black and White, are they right or wrong? OH GOD I DON'T KNOW IT'S A GREY AREA NOOOOOOOO *a-hem*
All said, I rather enjoy writing this crap. I know I don't have a massive readership by any measure, but some people are reading this somewhere, and I don't care if on reading my Vignettes you think I'm some whiny emo kid suffering a terminal case of being an ass hat, because I am quite an ass hat and I rather feel as if I'm suffering a terminal case of heartbreak as well so go figure pal.
Ironically enough, as an internet-based nerd with crippling social difficulties and a mental disability, I rather relish the challenge of meeting people in the flesh. Yes, I have to listen to someone else's stories, share my precious personal space and usually spend refreshment for myself or them as well, but I rather like it on balance. Hell may well be other people, but if heaven were peaceful I'd find a way to get myself kicked out. The uneasy monster of dating is looming nearby, but what with my recent record I'm in no fit state to talk about it so openly. Let's just say for now that I don't date.
What about writing though, that ancient medium? As much as these are words that you are reading that I have wrest into order, nothing beats pen (or pencil) on paper. It's easily my best method of communication, the written word, which is how these blasted posts manage to be so long. There's an almost unbroken brain-to-hand trail, unlike brain-to-mouth, which is tricky at best. That vital second of thought makes all the difference for writing/typing/signing &c. I rather like letters. Who out there wants to correspond? Handwritten as standard. There is one particular person I really want to write to, but I'm actually frightened to ask, for once. Sorry, I meant AS USUAL. I haven't even seen them online for days, and the wonders of the Short Message Service haven't been effective. Anyway. If anybody out there who is reading this crap wants to get in touch, do it. If you show me yours, I'll show you mine. Of course I meant address, you prevert.
Social Networking, Old School Stylee.
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