Social networking. Pretty much the hot topic of the year. I guess it's alright. Revolutionary in the scheme of things. Wouldn't be writing this here without it.
But it probably has the most confusing role in my life. It can go from being my sole communicator, to being the bane of my existence. Granted, it's never completely absent from my life. I just take different approaches depending on my mood.
When I moved here away from my friends, it became the primary access to my old life. But once I established a friendship circle here, it became a way of learning a bit about people I've just met. It only transformed to an annoyance when I became tired of the hackneyed status updates and photo montages. I viewed facebook as a place for people to brag, whine, or establish a façade. Instead of browsing through the endless news feed of trash, I yearned for something concrete and genuine. But being the clearly reasonable person that I am, I retreated from the only thing that could achieve my wish: chatting.
I didn't stop checking facebook. No, no. That would be too logical. Plus, my compulsive habit was too overwhelming. But instead, I just permanently set my status to offline and left it at that. It remained this way for a few months. I didn't think much of changing it. I interacted with people in real life, at uni and on the weekends. And when I came home, just browsed through food blogs and took sanctuary in reddit with complete strangers. I didn't recognize how empty my life was without my friends until going a while without them.
But now that my primary confidante and conversationalist is in another hemisphere (not too hard when you live in Australia), I feel alone again and have opened up the lines of communication once more. I feel a bit silly for losing contact for so long. Especially since the friends back home I never want to lose. But I'll be coming back soon and really cannot wait until virtual becomes face-to-face. Unfortunately, before that happens, I'll have to study til I experience CSF leakage and what a merry time to rediscover facebook it is!
