The Loneliness in Communcation

This summer I was plagued by strangers asking for friendship, across different social media platforms.

I'm a sympathetic person and I can get caught up with a stranger if I feel he or she needs the attention. 

I had to take a step back. It was partly because I have a lot on my plate that I have chosen to do: church, volunteering, a community association, teacher union things, a writing project,  on top of the usual: home, garden, family.

It was also because it was a little awkward. It was mostly men, middle aged or older, who were seeking friendship. A friendship? or a "friendship"? I'm married. So, erm, no.

How did Facebook, Wattpad, Instagram become hunting grounds for relationships? What has this world come to? 

Of course, with the current social climate, racism, and the pandemic, worries like these are extremely minor in the grand scheme of things. But it still makes me wonder.

Why can't people find friends from going out with their regular friends? Oh, wait. That's right. We were cloistered as a world-wide community for about six months now. Most of us stayed away from our usual normal circles. Ah, I see.

Also, I've heard that people can be busy. That's what I have read is the reason that some use those relationship apps which are supposed to save their users time by automatically matching them up with potential mates.  

If you are that busy, and you know you want a friend, maybe you need to be... I don't know... less busy? Go to fewer meetings? Ask for time off? Leave work on time, one day a week, and go to an online card game group? 

Yet still. Why would anyone think another person would want to randomly chat with you, outside of any connection - you have no connection with them, no friends in common, no reading in common, no article in common - and they just want to have a talk?

It made me a little sad. Human beings need to connect with each other. We are social animals and as such, we seek our herds, our tribes, and we want to know we are valued, appreciated, and needed in this world. It keeps us sane. The ones who don't have those connections are potentially in danger of depression or worse. That's why I sometimes lose out to my feelings of sympathy.

So, I decided to close up my social media doors. I thought, as a classroom teacher, I need to model safe internet practices for my students as well as for myself. The first app I closed up was my teacher instagram. I turned it from public to private.  Originally, I kept it public because I had imagined naively that students 'everywhere' would be inspired by my posts and students from ages ago would reconnect with me and let me know how successful they are - or at least happy.

When I thought about it, I didn't want strangers commenting on my posts, because those comments could connect the stranger with one of my students. Nope.  On that thought, I made that account private.

I changed my Facebook settings that people could only connect with me if they had a connection with one of my existing friends. I posted about that experience and encouraged others to check their "friends" settings. A stranger, whose own friendship request originally inspired me to figure out the solution to that glitch, "liked" that post. It was a little humorous.

I had a few dozen messages on Wattpad over the past few years. I never knew because I was inactive on Wattpad. I started up again for various reasons. I assumed the message were all 'bots. However, I did chat with one, as a sort of test for 'bot-ness, and it appeared to be a real human. This person wanted to chat off Wattpad, but, er. No.

I stopped notifications from Wattpad. It was a little impolite, I think, to just basically disappear from that person, but, hm. The internet society is an odd one.

Now, that I am writing about this, I need to go back and change my contact information, too. 

I wish everyone will have or has a good friend or two; someone with whom he or she can connect with, laugh with, share ideas with, and break bread with.  

I just can't be that person for everyone in the world.