Facebook - never the inner circle...

After sometime into Social networking esp., facebook, I have made more than 500 friends.

Most of my friends are either family, or friends who have common interests with me.   Then there are few friends, whose profiles either Facebook suggests, or I like, so I got connected.

When one posts a status, note or blog, less than 1% of friends actually react.  Of course, everybody is not expected to react to everything.   But most of these friends are good to have around.  

You change cities; you change jobs - some of these friends disappear.   But facebook connects you and somehow keeps you still available to your friends.

Cut - now to real life.  You have your family, work and 'real' friends who you meet / interact on a personal basis.  The 'flesh and blood' aspect is real.   Your private moments are with them.  

Some of my friends go off facebook once in a while to actually spend time with their family and friends.   Either because they find facebook too crowded, or because facebook  is not part of the inner circle.   Anyways, one is too busy to care - when any of the facebook friends miss you.

May be facebook is a good tool to stay in touch. 

Couple of my friends are in a relationship - 'engaged' to be precise, and facebook keeps them connected.  They chat on facebook, like each others' status more often than not - always near online.  But once they get married, the facebook relationship changes, as is obvious.  Their presence will dwindle, and facebook becomes a thing- outside the relationship.  Perspectives, same tool, different time.

Can we conclude that facebook relationship is a measure of distance?  Either you are closer in relationship, but away from each other, or you may be in the same city, but a distant acquaintance?

In a sense, the world is more round than flat - a tool is a tool - but never an element of the inner circle of one's life in 'flesh and blood'.

-The One

Picture courtesies Internet.