I have never been this social in my life.
Growing up, I was always the guy that sat at home watching TV on Friday and Saturday nights, while all the other cool kids were off at their lavish parties. Or hanging out somewhere deep in the woods so the cops wouldn't find them drinking or smoking or whatever else high school kids do. I guess it would have been nice to crash one of these shindigs, but that wasn't me. I had friends, just not the kind that hung out beneath the water tower. That didn't happen until college, not that there was a water tower, but there always seemed to be a keg somewhere.
Even then though I wasn't one to share my inner most thoughts, I am a guy after all. Most conversations revolved around beer, babes, and basketball. Yeah we were cool. Hanging out usually meant watching Sportscenter or playing Sega Hockey (NHLPA '94 still remains the best game ever made in my eyes). That was the extent of our social lives.
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| Go tell it on the mountain! |
It seems that most of my "friends" now exist solely online. I think I have shared more here in the past year than I have in my 38 years on Earth.
Twitter is now like a bar, where I can pull up a stool and start a conversation with anyone, a real conversation. I have met so many amazing and interesting people from all over the world that seem to be just like me. Finding a support group has been awesome. It can get pretty lonely being a stay at home dad. Sure there are groups out there with actual live fleshy people, but it takes a huge effort and a lot of travel to do that. Twitter has become somewhat of a refuge me, and I can count on it to take away some of the loneliness.
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| Not so sure I would give it a thumbs up |
Facebook is very different. I don't know what is real or not there. It seems like people only post when they are having a super awesome day or are taking a trip. I don't even know that half the people I'm friends with are alive until they go on vacation. Then it seems that they won't stop posting about what an amazing time they are having, checking into great restaurants and sharing pictures of their kids with oversized stuffed animals. Then there are those groups of people that take a road trip somewhere and constantly post pictures of each other. You know the only people that care about those pictures are the people you are with. Have a conversation with THEM instead of telling US about your conversation.
Everything is social nowadays.
There are social readers that tell everyone what you are reading. Seriously, are we supposed to read together? I thought that was something limited to bedtime between me and my boys. There are photo apps that share all of our greatest photos. I am on Instagram, but I only take pictures, if you choose to follow me that's great, but I can't reciprocate. It's too time consuming.
Of course there are a million other social media venues that I haven't mentioned including Google+. I was told that this was awesome but it seems that the only people that are on there are people that I already talk to on Twitter and Facebook. How many different places can I talk to the same people? How many different places can suck time away from something that I should be doing elsewhere? Maybe I should go back into my room and watch TV?
To find out what I am doing next* you can follow me at one of these places:
*I will most likely be mowing the lawn
