Dot com friendships

International Friendship Day (August 1) can be celebrated with exuberance on cyber space, thanks to social networking sites

BY MADHUCHANDA DAS

Thank heavens for the agents of change that have sustained human sociability. These hyper-stressed times that we live in have probably taken their greatest toll on our time and relationships. As we are challenged to constantly balance our lives and our livelihood, our subsisting landscapes seem to resemble a complex juggling of jugalbands. Socially indifferent these times may be, but can we deny that we’re still inherently Aristotle’s social animals? Forever pining for sane company, we’ve sought solace in the past perfect to escape the trials of the present continuous. Those peerless people from our priceless days have just stopped being manufactured these days.

We seem to be drowned in oceans of people, yet we are stranded in desolate islands of loneliness.

It’s no surprise we’ve all been on our search missions, digging for meaningful connections in piles of acquaintances, partners, colleagues and guardians.

But hey, kudos to the human mind’s never-say-die spirit. It has managed to come up with the Viagra for our isolation pangsthe new marvel known as ‘social networking’ that has us hooked and booked. It is the proverbial silver lining that makes our past perfect tangible, accessible and viable. It has landed us lonely hearts in a unique virtual universe to quench our thirst for companionship, and created that transparent, closeto-perfection common ground which broke manmade barriers.

Without much investment of time, effort or money, we can now be transported to comfortable hangouts far from the madding crowd of the real world. These hangouts revive flesh and blood friendships from the good old days that had, until now, perished in the dark corners of our life’s closet. They make us realise that though we have moved on in our relationships, we haven’t actually moved apart.

The home page is indeed second home - where profiles reflected the latent person rather than the largerthan-life personality. We can afford to indulge and have a ball without being bothered about the tyres around our waists or the bags under our eyes. Yup, here’s where we can fib, flaunt, fraternize, feast and foster. We can be flabbergasted by a whacky black-and-white photograph from three decades ago, and yet debate philosophically on the significance of the 100th grey hair discovered that morning. We can talk nonsense and yet make perfect sense. Isn’t this what normal human life is meant to be? Anyway, why bother to dissect that thought when we can take an escape route to virtual exuberance and emancipation? Yes, the mode is blatant, public, in-your-face, but at least it is liberating, relevant, addictive, free, entertaining, uplifting, and above all, happening.

It provides us with a bustling virtual life with lots to catch up and chat up on. It opens us to new relationships and communities and makes us feel loved, wanted and respected. It is the new wave news channel that beams updates and status messages from friends - making us more globally informed, but in a local sort of way. We don’t connect with all our 500 friends every day, but hey, it is fun to feel their presence on the fringes of our social domain. No matter how entangled we are within life’s labyrinths, a quick check into our friends’ lives provides that undeniable succour to our otherwise boring lunch breaks. And with time, the urge to steal a peek only grows stronger, often to escape from the looming drudgery of our mundane everyday existence. If not for it, our relationships would have frozen in time. And so we are indubitably happy to retrace those meaningful bits and pieces of our past, to charge up our present, and direct our future.

The high and mighty endlessly debate on social networking demeaning true friendship. But they overlook the fact that like everything else, friendship itself is a mutating concept, moulded by changing seasons of time. Separated as we are by mammoth geographical distances and leading forever-on-the-go lives, it is indeed hard to physically hold on to friends for long. Again, the onset of age and wisdom also play their tricks, making us choosier and moodier. Striking serious friendships seems more challenging than ever before.

And we are happy and in many ways relieved to discover that more than half our khaandaan is wired too!

Updates on each other’s lives get less painstaking. It also implicitly threads our bonds in a new cord of congeniality. The content of expression may have changed, but the context and concern remain the same. You bet, sharing and caring were never such fun. Reminder services for birthdays and anniversaries are finally freed from the memory chips of mortal minds and mobiles. The cost of celebration is wickedly cheap with just a virtual gift to bestow in a click, and we are done.

Fake, the pundits cry hoarse, but it is genuine for us ordinary mortals and works wonders for our ever-craving self esteem. We are someone, we are famous, and we are being noticed and followed. We have a chalked-out space in that enviable neighbourhood that gives us a high, and an impalpable sense of achievement and belonging. So what if real connections only qualify as relationships; this cyber camaraderie is flawless, faultless friendship. So what if our compatriots are impersonal thanks to the Earth’s varied time zones; there is at least someone to talk to whenever we are in the mood, yes, even in the dead of the night.

Friendship in its latest avatar has arrived - from life’s race to the virtual space. And to its creators - I join the other 500 million who just logged in, to say thank you for unravelling what is integral to and inherent in us. You guys sure did make this Friendship Day uncannily special.