Sometimes I wonder why the hell I'm on social media at all. Yes, it's been great to reconnect with people from my past - well, some of them, that is. You could have knocked me over with a feather when my first ex-husband had the audacity to friend request me on Facebook.
I've been on Twitter for about a year - wow, didn't realize it has been that long already. In a year, I don't think anyone has ever retweeted or favorited a tweet of mine. I think I've gotten two responses from my tweets - both were from celebrities.
I still don't get what's so great about Twitter. I mean, just when you are about to get out what you want to say (this post will show how long-winded I am), your character counter is running down to zero, and you have to back up and delete words or phrases, replacing them w/ abvns lk ths. I basically follow celebrities on it. I have trouble figuring out who is talking to whom, and the short keys and emojis are hard for me to follow. Not to mention that quite a few celebrities, e.g.. Cher, et al. have dyslexia and their writing is extremely hard for me to understand. I mean, really, follow her on Twitter and tell me what she is saying. Have you ever followed Mara Wilson, the ex-actress from Mrs. Doubtfire and Matilda? She is the re-tweeting queen and will make your head spin. I bet she retweets 100 x per day.
Other than getting together with my roommate from college and some people from high school that I NEVER hung around with, I haven't seen any of the 199 + people from my past in person. The other 50 people or so are people I have met within the past five years or so, e.g. co-workers, softball teammates, my partners' friends, my family.
So when my brother posted a video two days ago nominating me for the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, it confirmed what I already knew - I have no close friends. I mean, really, who am I going to nominate? My partner, yes, but where would I find two other people?
My kids and parents have already been nominated. I feel like I would be the laughing stock of FB if I nominated someone I never see. The dialogue I envision would be like this:
B.M. - why would B nominate me? I haven't seen her since high school?
A.R. - why would B nominate me? Doesn't she have any close friends?
S.A. - why would B nominate me? I only worked with her one year and I probably will never see her again.
ALL: Doesn't B have a life?
So instead of videotaping myself nominating my one person, my partner, and being embarrassed about it, I simply made a contribution to. www.alsa.org. And when it asked the question, "Ice Bucket Challenge?" - I checked the box "no."
It sucks not having a close friend. Someone who would call on Friday and say, "Hey, I'm going to IKEA tomorrow to look at kitchen gadgets. Want to join me?" Or "Are you watching the game on Sunday? Want to watch it together?"
When I was married and had kids at home, we had a pretty much open-door policy until 10:00 p.m. (We had a family that would just show up to borrow things when we were already asleep, so we had to make the 10:00 p.m. rule.) It was nice because the house was USUALLY fairly presentable. If they were really friends, that shouldn't mind a little clutter. For many years I cried and cried because I had no close friends. Just when I got one or two, I left that life.
Are close friends necessary? No, probably not. Are they important? Yes, I think so. I have some close friends in the works. I will let you know if any of them pan out.
In the meantime, go to www.alsa.org and donate, even if you dumped ice water on your head.
Peace.
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