Despite these cozy feelings, there is some disconnect in our catching up with each other over the Internet as often as we do. We know each other’s cell-phone numbers by heart and can talk to each other daily about anything – books we’re reading, relationship problems, what we ate for breakfast, what our plans are for the weekend – but our interactions with each other, outside of planned one-on-one time, have developed into online conversations.
In place of phone calls and even text messages, we use Facebook Messenger, we chat through Instagram stories, or we mutually “favourite” each other’s most recent tweets.
On my most recent birthday, I woke up to a special-occasion Instagram post, where she shared my photo and a heartfelt caption. So when her birthday arrived, I knew I couldn’t just text – I had to share it with the world.
My first realization that our friendship had been affected by our methods of communication came a couple days after New Year’s. While scrolling through Twitter, I discovered this snippet she had posted just minutes before: “Started today by accidentally going into work and I’m ending it in the emergency room.”
What?! I texted, worried: “Hey girl, just saw your tweet. Everything okay?”
The full disclosure that she was, in fact, okay, came through in a text message.
And it hit me: Had we become so reliant on social media that we didn’t remove the filter for a crisis? Wasn’t I on some sort of “to call in case of emergency” list?
At least I heard from her before she updated Twitter: “Emergency room update: I’m fine. Nothing serious.”
A life online does circumvent some practical limitations in real life: She works in web publishing and I work in digital marketing. Given that our days are structured around open tabs and e-mail interfaces – and in different parts of town – it was inevitable that we would meet each other where we are, online.
And, since the objects of our mutual interests are also housed by Google Chrome, we often trade articles, share links to shoes to buy, or pass on anything that unearths a “this-made-me-think-of-you” sentiment. Last week, she invited me to an event to watch a feminist film, followed by conversation and drinks.
“How do you feel about this?” (She inserted a live link.)
“Omg yussss” (which I followed with a big smiley emoji).
We expressed our excitement to each other in likes, emojis, and “yays.” With small dings back and forth – prompted by the Facebook Messenger sound effects that are akin to cartoon-style twinkles on bright white teeth – we used technology to carry on our evolving 10-year friendship.
In the early years, we would have made these plans in person, or on the phone between day-long study bouts at a café or during bike rides, dates around desserts or introductions to new apartments we had each found and the roommates that came with them.
In those years, she was there to impart wisdom when I broke up with my first love, to lend me a book for our English class or share a handwritten schedule from the boss at our part-time job.
I offered the same support in her moments of personal turmoil or delight. I wouldn’t hear about how her wild night ended until we met up the next day to critique and catalogue every interaction with a cute boy, mutual friend or bartender.
Our friendship is replete with stories, most of which, in the past, we retold over laughs in long afternoons in the park and late-night phone calls: “Are you up? Can I come over?”
Sometimes, I miss the simplicity of those days. Now, our interactions seem more conscious, deliberate, even. These feelings, I guess, are the consequence of establishing a life through web pages.
But as we grow personally and professionally in an expanding digital world, we question if our real lives fit into this new story and if this online life, with all its formatting and curation, is as intentional or as true as the one we experienced before.
Most importantly, though, we wonder: Everyone’s connected, but are we maintaining connections in the ways we want to any more?
The other day, while out shopping together in person, she and I chatted about many of the same things we had shared recently over the Web. My wedding planning is going well (hers too) and we remarked on the jewellery we might wear for the occasion.
Observations about our online lives – such as “Oh, I shared that in my story last week” or “Yeah, I saw you posted that photo” – become prompts and helped give context to our conversations.
Later, we stopped for pastry and some coffee at a local café, as we had done so often in the past. “Cherry danish, right?” She nodded.
Remembering her favourite pastry made me realize that while we had mastered the expanding universe of communications – and now take full advantage of it – some things are only learned through time shared in real life.
I understood then that our friendship hasn’t changed, now we just have more ways we can appreciate our time together, online and off.
Alex G. Brown lives in Toronto.
Aug. 20, 2019 "Friend or faux": Today I found this article by Jane Shilling in the Edmonton Journal:
Words are tricky. You think they mean something quite specific, only to find that there has been a sneaky bit of semantic drift, and an apparently reliable meaning has changed into something amorphous and puzzling.
Take “friends.” When the beloved American sitcom of that name was launched in September 1994, a friend was universally understood to be someone you hung out with in real life (to use a term not in currency at the time). You might fight, flirt, drink or play sport with your friends, but the essential element of the relationship was the irreplaceable intimacy that comes with spending time together.
Three months, almost to the day, before the final episode of Friends aired on May 6, 2004, the word “friend” embarked on a startling mutation, with the launch of Facebook. From then on, a “friend” might be someone you had never met, even though you were privy to whatever details of their private life they chose to share online.
If social media has strained the definition of friendship almost to the point of meaninglessness, celebrity introduces it to a whole new stratosphere of weirdness — which is perhaps why singer Ed Sheeran recently told an interviewer that he had reduced his friendship group to “four best friends.”
The extensive online record of his celebrity chums lists everyone from Taylor Swift to Princess Beatrice (who, in a story later described by another British singer, James Blunt as an invention, was said to have accidentally sliced open Ed’s face with a sword during a late-night “knighting” ceremony, leaving a scar that a 19th-century German student duellist might envy).
Shared experience is the basis of friendship, so it is hardly surprising celebrities tend to stick together. But while Sheeran’s interview links the culling of his friendship cohort to social anxiety (with the implication that the surviving friends predate his fame), you don’t have to be anxious or famous to feel that you have outgrown your friendships.
“You’ll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first,” the undergraduate Charles Ryder’s pompous cousin Jasper tells him in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. Charles ignores him, but (like the rest of us) he discovers that the tendency of most friendships to sprout, blossom and wither is inescapable.
This is not to say that such relationships are without value; just that, like romantic love, they are not made to last. If Ed has found four of them after decluttering his friendship cupboard, he is a lucky man.
A survey of American dating habits concludes that for the first time, more people are meeting partners online than through friends, family or work.
One reason for this is apparently that “individuals might not want to share their dating activities with their mother or friends.”
Indeed not. Years ago, just before my first date with my partner, I confided in a colleague my anxiety about my recently published book, whose cover image, for impeccable artistic reasons, was a photograph of me without a stitch on. He instantly threatened to use the story in his gossip column.
The Greek chorus of friends and family is one of the most formidable hurdles of a new relationship.
Then again, the moment when you realize that it’s serious is generally the moment in which you understand that it’s not all about you.
This week's theme is about relationships with your friends and family:
"My adult daughter is overstaying her welcome"/ "Cut dad some slack for odd wedding speech"
"Friendship is key to happiness"/ "Family issues a turn off for potential new friend"
My week:
Mon. Nov. 22, 2021 The Simpsons: On the weekend, my friend Cham came over and we watched The Simpsons episodes "A Serious Flanders" and "A Serious Flanders Part 2."
"Homer and Ned get sucked into the violent world of prestige TV when a ruthless debt collector comes to Springfield."
"Things go from bad to worse for Homer and Ned."
There is:
- a bag of cash
- a character gets kidnapped
- a shootout
- a fight scene
- the bad guys come to town to get the money
This is like the TV show Big Sky season 2.
Nov. 17, 2021 "Alberta announces $21.5M in funding to aid homeless, other vulnerable residents":
EDMONTON - The Alberta government is boosting spending to help those experiencing homelessness, a population that has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Premier Jason Kenney announced today $21.5 million in funding to address homelessness and domestic violence, as well as for isolation spaces for people infected with COVID-19.
About $13 million of the money wouldaid 14 shelters to expand space and provide meals, showers, laundry services and access to addictions and mental health services.
Another $6.5 million is to be used to open about 285 isolation spaces in 10 communities, and $2 million would support emergency women's shelters.
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi says the funding will help to prevent people from sleeping in the streets as colder temperatures threaten their safety.
The funding is to be in place until March, and Kenney says long-term solutions need to be explored.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2021.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Alberta announces $21.5M in funding to aid homeless, other vulnerable residents | Bc | chroniclejournal.com
Tues. Nov. 23, 2021 "Enter for a chance to WIN $5,000 from CanadaHelps!": I shared this on Facebook and Twitter. I would say the charity I like is the Edmonton Food Bank:
"GivingTuesday is November 30th and is a day dedicated to giving.
Tell us what you plan to do to support your favourite charity and give them a chance to win a $5,000 donation from CanadaHelps!"
10590 Canadians (and counting!) have entered their favourite charity for a chance to WIN!
Enter for a chance to WIN $5,000 for your favourite charity on GivingTuesday! | CanadaHelps
Fri. Nov. 26, 2021 Fantasy Island: I saw the first 2 episodes of this TV show when it came out in Aug. This week I watched the remaining 6 episodes. I find the characters, writing, and stories to be average.
The show is filmed in Puerto Rico and I really like the scenery. White sand, blue water, blue skies. I feel like I'm really at a luxury resort.
Fantasy Island (TV Series 2021– ) - IMDb
'Fantasy Island' Renewed for Season 2 at Fox - Variety
Where Was The Fantasy Island Series Actually Filmed? (looper.com)
Sandals Resorts: This show had an effect on me, that I researched Sandals Resorts. I saw the ads in the Globe and Mail and on TV commercials. However, they're not in Puerto Rico, they're in places like Jamaica.
For Employment at the Resorts:
Please note that employment of nonresidents of Caribbean countries requires a work permit which is granted by the relevant government. Work permits are only made available for positions which cannot be filled locally. For positions at the resorts, send resumes to:
Sandals Resorts International
5 Kent Avenue, PO BOX 100 Montego Bay, Jamaica, WI recruitSRI@grp.sandals.com
Sandals Careers & Employment | Sandals
My opinion: Oh yeah, you need to get a work permit to work in another country.
I may go there on vacation. However, my first choice is Las Vegas.
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