the monday

this girl recently talked about the good friends you make whom you will never actually meet, and how much she has come to rely on them. back when i first started this journal, i kicked around the idea of communities which develop on the 'net, and how much computers have changed the way we interact with each other. i have made some of my best friends via computer conversations - i never would have met mike b if it hadn't been for the computer. if i hadn't met mike b, i never would have met lemon and lime. i started to talk with newly single because i loved the honesty and humour with which he writes. today, i'm picking him up at the airport as he heads off on his whistler ski adventure.

people say that computers have participated in the isolation of 'modern humanity' - that they contribute to the alienation we feel in society. is that a truth? or is it that our ways of communicating and interacting have evolved along with our technology? when writing letters was the only way of communing with one another, that's what we did. then we had the telephone, now the internet, and email, and text messaging, and instant messenger. maybe it's a double edged sword: the rise in digitized communication HAS made it harder to meet people face-to-face. we are more suspicious of people who are genuinly friendly strangers - which, by the way, is a very sad thing. (i remember remarking to mike b about the friendliness of a woman standing in line in front of us when we were christmas shopping, and how it is so rare here in vancouver for people to talk to the strangers they are in line with. mike and i are both from a smaller community where random line up conversations are the norm, not the exception).

so maybe this is my challenge to you for the new year: reach out in person the way you reach out on line. sure it will probably take you beyond your realm of comfort, especially in a big city. yes, chances are your good intentions will be rudely rebuffed at least once. however, for every poor reception i wager there are two people who's day you will make, simply by chatting to them as you stand in line at the movies (i recently spent a wonderful 10 min in the snack line up cracking myself and the people in line with me up - sure made the time more enjoyable), or commenting on a novel or magazine you notice someone reading in a cafe, or whatever. come on, i dare you.