Friends without benefits

Cheers!

Updating your status is all the rage and for anyone under 30 it’s a must! How would we cope if we didn’t twitter, facebook , instant message , Skype or spend facetime with our friends? I mean you’re just not part of the in- crowd if you’re not connected.

I’m not a techno-phobe. I enjoy the occasional electronic contact but am firmly in the “out crowd” when it comes to electronic friendships. To me, they are an unknown entity. It’s hard enough to find 5 other people with tastes that match your own and whom you’d like to share your precious time with. How on earth do you sift through 267 friends who are unabashed extroverts clamouring for gossip and tidbits to pass around?

Facebook is a malady of puberty that you may eventually outgrow; sadly there’s many a forty-fifty something who can’t get enough. This community was fashioned in the devil’s own workshop – “Idle Mind Inc.” Such minds are set loose in that cyber theme park known as Facebook. Sharing pictures, tagging them, writing on your wall, updating your profile, exchanging messages is social networking at its best (and worst!).

Bitch and Stitch-up club

The concept of a private life has gone totally out of the window. This is a tool that “pokes” you and you’re expected to respond. If you don’t, it’s seen as a rebuff. Facebook  is another form of self-aggrandisment  and keeping up with the Kardashians. It’s trite trivia that fills up minds that run on half empty.

Wittering, whining, whingeinging and wallowing – electronic friendships indulge in a ton of it. Men of 60 purport to be virile studs of 30, people in unhappy relationships or no relationships will tell all manner of untruths to make themselves more interesting; predators lurk on such sites waiting for the vulnerable to log in and chat.

Sharing the highs

Defenders of Facebook will say that its a social utility with a purpose. Purposeful negativity more like, when it becomes a re forum for backbiters!  In fact, so called “friends” have entered into suicide pacts and departed from this world. These “friends” are the shallow kind and, if you were in a state of crisis, they’d be the last to offer any kind of meaningful solace.

True friendships are rare so keep good company. The good ones are to be treasured. Don’t offload everything on to your friends – friendship is a fragile and many splendoured  thing – choose well and let them bear rich fruit. Facebook is a vehicle for the unhealthy ego. Though your own may be in good shape you’ll find a lot of maladjusted friends out there who'll be of no benefit to you!

Man's best friend will never let you down!