The concept of friends has undergone drastic change ever since social media has come in. Now we have more virtual friends than real ones. Often we interact more with such virtual friends than our real friends. Perhaps due to the ease in accessing them online, or the excitement of adding new ones every other day and knowing more about unknown people from different places, or being pulled in by the already existing networks, whatever be the reasons. Some of these friendships indeed evolve and go to the next level of being actual real life friends. Some remain in the virtual space itself and most others just fade off and reappear once in a while when it is someones birthday or when you upload a new picture. Yet some others are such that if they are in your friend list, you actually dont need enemies! Thankfully enough, all of them are classified as friends in this media! We often tend to confuse our virtual relationships with the real ones and have unrealistic expectations from people whom we havent even met once in our life so far, let alone knowing them in real by getting under their skin. Funnily enough some of us behave as though we made indeed great friends, dedicate ourselves as friends for life, and celebrate their birthdays, anniversaries, get togethers and what have yous more than our own dear ones! Until just one small thing happens, again in the virtual world. An argument over an issue during a debate. A remark or a comment which did not mean what it was painted out to be. Sometimes just forgetting to put a smiley could change the interpretation of what was supposed to be a comment in jest into something else. Or even sillier things like, we liked or said something nice on a particular persons post whom our friends treat as an enemy or someone who is under a virtual fatwa! Any of these could be good enough to turn the tables and we wonder whatever happened to the great friendships! Once that happens then it is time to micro-analyse each and every move of that person to conclude our own findings and profiling of such persons again based on what he or she does in a virtual media. Every word and sentence that he or she makes, comes under microscope to stereotype his or her intent, preferences and to confirm our biases about them. Even the self-proclaimed liberals pool in others who could be thinking that way to objectify their assessments and to rationalise their conclusions and in the process add even new friends to further this campaign. People who spend a good lifetime together in the same bed dont understand each other fully, often living in fake castles of great love to be demonstrated for the society. Parents dont understand their own children well and move apart. And here we all pretend to understand precisely about another person whom we havet met even once in our life based on what he or she did in the social media! Richard Bach said -Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in thousand years. Therefore it isnt that easy for many of us to know who our true friends are, just based on whom we acquaint, that too in social media. The true friendship is something beyond the social connect. It is the chemistry between the hearts. It is an acceptance of who our friends are without imposing our preferences and prejudices. It is where our souls could be entirely naked without a shred of fear or shame. Hence it isnt that easy to get one. While we make many friends as we grow up, its only with very few that we are truly connected. To whom even if we dont connect physically for years together, we can pick the threads from where we left as though it was only just the day before. With whom we can be in chat or talk for hours and hours together yet not feel tired or negative. We feel refreshed with such a friend and we can rely on him or her at the worst of our crises. We could find such a friend(s) through this media too, if we are lucky enough. But then let us not be naive to assume that all the friends we have in the virtual world are indeed our friends of that class or calibre. It is said truth is stranger than fiction, so is reality stranger than virtuality. What we see in the social media may not be what in real the person would be in the darkest corner of his or her abode. We know these facts, yet sometimes act as if we do not know and believe all that we see in virtual as real, perhaps due to our own insecurities and fears to not let the world know who we truly are or what our situation in real is. So we continue to perpetuate the virtual imagery that suits us and keep basking in that glory spending all our time and energies in eulogising the make believe like those who did for the non-existent robes of the naked king in the parable, and get absorbed into the herd mentality or sometimes viciously like in a mob behaviour, often discarding our independent judgement. As Atticus said, you will never understand a man until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. If we do actually get to do that, we will be in for a good surprise about most of our friends whom we tend to know well enough purely based on their activities in this virtual media. Sometimes pleasant ones and in other times, painful that could end up burning our fingers, hearts and even purses! So let us hold our judgements until then and treat the virtual media as virtual to keep it for what it is and not confuse what happens here with reality and compound our already existing problems in real life. For some, this social media could be their only life. So let them continue to be in their delusion for their own good reasons. But for a lot many of us, there is indeed a life outside of this virtual space. Let this not colour that and confuse us, as that life is indeed too short to be wasted in negativity. If we care to take a step back and step out of this, it could perhaps help discover who our true friend(s) is/are. And let us cherish that true friendship without any expectations, obligations and reservations. Have a great weekend. TGIF!
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 10:29:35 +0000
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