Thanks to social media and WordPress I’ve become friends with a large number of people who* I’ve never actually met face to face. (*Should that be whom? I’m sure one of my friends will let me know.)
I enjoy these friendships formed over creative writing, political leanings, and witty comments. In many ways they are as important to me as friendships formed in old-fashioned ways, such as over a shared love of hopscotch in elementary school or while playing hooky together in junior high (not that I ever did that, of course).
Social media friends tend to be extremely forthright and plain-spoken. If one thinks you’re full of cow manure or a post is weak they’re likely to tell you, knowing they’ll never have to look you in the eye. If a fellow blogger doesn’t “like” or comment on a post their silence might indicate that they didn’t care for the piece or that they didn’t have time to actually read it. The Pollyanna in me always believes it to be the latter.
A friend I don’t know with whom I play Words With Friends (Roy S.) went missing from the game for more than a week, and I began to worry about him. Because the game is our only link, I had no way to inquire after him. Finally this week he played a word and in chat said he’d been unwell for the past few days. Whew! Of course I’d imagined poor Roy S. dangling from a cliff by one hand while trying frantically to type “a-p-r-a-x-i-a” with the other.
Similarly, if I don’t hear or read something from a blogger I follow I start feeling anxious. My imagination goes on overdrive and trust me, in my mind some of you have met spectacular ends. I’m so very relieved when I see a post from your site, and your make-believe death gets saved in my future fiction file.
This leads to the following question: Shouldn’t there be a way of making sure the friends we don’t know are ok? Maybe I’ll invent an app that generates one final note on social media upon one’s death. Something like:
Hey there. Leslie’s dead. She wanted you to know that your support meant so much. Here’s one last poem composed in advance of her demise to be shared on this occasion.
Gone
By Leslie aka Nana
Life was so wonderful
But my time has come,
No one thought I was sick
Guess they feel pretty dumb.
But I lived a full life
Full of all that is good,
Now sit and weep for me
Like any real friend would.
Leslie knew this wasn’t much of a poem, but, hey she was really sick.
Peace, and good health, people!
Praying for Eyebrowz 