So I’m sat here with frozen toes and fingers, and a brain flying at a million miles an hour, instead of being asleep (as per usual). Anyway, what’s got me stirring tonight is the apparent weakness of the word “friend”.

In an age of online social sites like Facebook, the ever-growing popularity of “roulette” type websites, and the age old chat programs like ICQ, IRC and MSN, face-to-face communication and shoulder-rubbing is being replaced with the cold and sterile buzz and clicks of computers and keyboards.

And I’m not cool with this. Take a look at my “friends” list. It’s less than a hundred (which is apparently pretty small). Of these 100 people, I’d probably name maybe not even 10, 15 at most, as truly a friend. That’s not to say I don’t value being able to chat and interact with everybody else, but it’s a bit misleading isnt it? Maybe it should be called “people I know or knew at some point”. I’m not a friends whore. I don’t care what my number of friends on my list is. All I care about is that they really are, or could be, my friend. I don’t care if you’re a supermodel, rich, or have good social circles. I don’t care about your religion, wether you are asian, french, italian, british, or even what you like to do in your spare time. I just care that you aren’t a fuckwit and that I can get on with you relatively easily.

But this is also why online contact is so great. There are a few people on my Facebook that I haven’t met other than through things like car clubs, online gaming and the like. I’ve even made promises to go and meet some of these people. This is what I think is great about socialising online. If it weren’t for the ability to be anonymous, to be myself without fear of repercussions or prosecution, I probably would never of had the chance to meet these wonderful people, and form such relationships with them.

I suppose what I am getting at is, I fear at some point people will start being “afraid” of meeting people in person. The fear of being rejected, or giving the wrong impression weighs in heavily for some (even me). People will get used to the set-and-forget nature of online friendships. Don’t like someone? That’s cool, block and delete them. You can’t do that as easily when they are sat right in front of you. I’m afraid that “making new friends” won’t involve actually going and seeing the person at all, ever.

And I’ve been the target of this for some people I thought I was truly making headway with. Friends from highschool, friends I’ve had coffees with and shared time on the couch with when they were lonely. Staying up to ungodly hours of the morning, spent chatting endlessly about eachothers lives. Listening to one another and being human. But as soon as I was out of sight for longer than 30 seconds, blocked and deleted and that was it. Nothing more to be said or done. No sorrys, no apologies, no explanations. Nobody should be expected to accept being brick-walled by someone they believed to be a warm-blooded human being.

So what I ask of all of you who read this, is to not forget who your friends are. Don’t be happy with just the numbers on your friends or contact lists, make an effort to form relationships, make new friends, get out into the world and experience what the rest of us have to offer. A friendship shouldn’t be easy, it should test you, make you think about your values, tug at your emotions and put a real human value on someone you care about.

Peace to you all my Facebook friends. Please, always remember, that the person on the other side of your screen is a real human being, with feelings, thoughts and emotions, and not just a bunch of zeros and ones…