I Miss Conversations

I can't remember the last time I sat down and had a long and interesting conversation with a friend, it's been months. But it's even more depressing that it's probably been years since I had conversations with friends on a regular basis. There are many reasons for this, I suppose. Is it my own fault? I don't know, I think during the past few months I've been doing my best to get out of my cave to socialize, communicate, and connect with people. The key word is "connect". It's not happening anymore.

While thinking about how strange life has felt lately, and noticing that conversations have been gone for quite a while, I also noticed that even e-mail or social-media-messages conversations were gone. Long blog conversations and arguments are gone too. Is it just me? Have I isolated myself to the point where I'm having to start from zero again? Shit, well, are you noticing the sames things I am? And who are you, by the way? Next time knock the door.

When MySpace was the shit, and people were excited about it and discovered that it was a great way to find people with common interests (and stalkers, perverts, and people looking to get laid), things were really good. I actually met and became friends with lots of people who I still talk to (briefly) today. MySpace messages conversations with people I didn't know happened all the time, and I loved it. Then the blogs came and it got even better. I invested plenty of time on my awesome blog to talk about the useless shit I think about all the time, and then I subscribed to any of my friend's blogs who wrote anything mildly interesting. "I'll be your magazine, you'll be mine" was my motto. It was a time for discussions and opinion exchange, the Renaissance of the social media era. I remember so many passionate-ultra long arguments on my conservative friend's blogs and on my own. It felt great to think, and to write, and to read, and to talk shit, and to get insulted, and to be a smartass, and to get home to read all the comments and start all over again. Fun, fun, fun. I think about it and I smile because it was so pleasurable! Where did it fucking go?

Then, the "more mature" and sleek Facebook came along at some point. All they did was to take away the freedom to make your own shitty profile that people enjoyed on MySpace, and because its default settings made your profile private from the start, women stopped getting those 4 or 5 daily messages with pictures of guys genitalia. They were also not getting a million bands' friend requests, and it didn't seem to be full up to its ass of raunchy ads. The migration began.

The reason why I didn't like Facebook then was because there were no bulletins and blogs were called (and are still called) notes, and it was confusing to go around your friends' blogs and discussions. Then, when the almighty Twitter came, Facebook, then MySpace, adopted the status-based method of "telling your friends what you're up to". Hey, even I was converted, making Twitter and Facebook my default sites for cyber-socializing. I still have my MySpace, but I check it way less frequently than I used to.

I believe that this new status-based communication allows you to actually get to know someone better than the early MySpace way, since it's all based on "me" and it's written for "me", you don't have all the bullshit and fictional personas that people on MySpace used to create of themselves. You actually get to read what someone is doing instead of reading how awesome they think they are or their dramatic blogs begging the world for attention. But the statuses, and their comments and "likes", killed the conversations. It's instant gratification at all times, getting to know what everyone is doing all the time. Short and sweet, or bittersweet, in my case. I follow you and read what the fuck you're doing, that's it. There's no more "tell me who the fuck you are" and then waiting for that long message full of bullshit to appear in your inbox. So sad.

You know, like I said before, I have been trying to go out and connect with people. Yes, I'm a picky motherfucker sometimes, and most people bore me to death, but I know there's plenty of people I'd like to have a conversation with out there. However, just like in the social media world, real life seems to have shifted to the status-based mode. It's like everyone has their own agendas with no place to take the time to get to really know you. Short and sweet. Everything seems short and sweet. There's no depth. Once again, it could just be me, maybe I'm just fucked. And I'm not the kind of person to force myself on anyone. I will go out of my way to let you know somehow that I'd like to talk to you once, or maybe twice, and you'll know, there aren't any interpretations to be made. But if I get no feedback or no interest from you, I won't fucking bother. I retired from professional time-waster long ago. I prefer having a great conversation with one person than going out, getting drunk, and saying "hello" to the one hundred people that I "know".

I don't know, I might have lost my mojo, perhaps I should accept it and carry on. Nah, I hate giving up, so don't worry about it (not that you will), and you'll hear me whine and complain about this again.

I'll keep putting myself out there, hoping for something but expecting nothing. And just in case, I'm going to re-write here one of the first things I wrote when my cyber-social life began, and it's still there, on the front of MySpace profile:

"If you really want to get to know me (or to start to), you will have to at least have a conversation with me face to face. I love coffee, so feel free to invite me."

If you don't want to, then that's OK too. The truth is that if you don't care, I don't care.

Don't look at me with that face, you're creeping me out.


I'm glad I got that out of my chest, it's been bothering the shit out of me.

Until next time... or not!



C