“Are you online?” I am frequently asked when I meet someone.  My answer is typically “no“, until recently.  What people are usually referring to is MySpace.  MySpace is the most popular social networking site, mostly amongst teens and younger adults.  It has become somewhat of a pop-culture icon.  At one point, I had a MySpace page, then I took it down because of all of the crazy “friend requests”.  Most of them were spam for adult sites.  Then I decided to go back on MySpace to try it again, and it’s still pretty much the same.  MySpace is the wild west of social networking.  I hardly use it.  The interface stinks, it’s too cluttered, and I feel like I need to be 15 years old to use it.

Another social networking site called LinkedIn is used to build a network of professionals together.  Mostly, it’s current and former colleagues.  The point of LinkedIn is to build your business connections.  As your connections grow, their connections become part of your connections.  It creates a viral affect.  So, I have about 70 connections, but because of who they know, and the people they know, my business contact base is over 100,000.  Theoretically.  If I need a job or if I am looking to network with someone for a professional reason, this is a great resource to tap into.

During the presidential debates, there was a poll question on CNN, but you needed a Facebook account to answer the questions, so I decided to take the plunge.  Facebook, like the others, allows you to network with friends, but in a different manner than MySpace.  In order to request a friend, you must know their name.  You cannot simply browse profiles that are open to anyone.  This is the most restrictive social networking site that I know of, but there is a huge advantage to that.  First of all, you aren’t spammed by “adult” profiles.  Secondly, if you belong to a group of a confirmed network, you can reconnect with people from your past rather easily.

I did just that.  It all started when I was contacted by someone from high school.  We had a great conversation through Facebook messaging, then with Facebook chat.  From there, I started looking for old friends from high school and old jobs.  Pretty cool stuff.  And once you become someone’s “friend”, you can see their profile, videos, pictures, blog, or whatever.

It was time to start searching for people that I haven’t heard from in a long, long time.  Karen Grill.  Chris Bruno.  Scott Wilson.  And others (I’ll spare you all from having your name permanently on my blog).  I never did find them.  Not on Facebook, Google, or anywhere.  (So if you know where they are, let me know, OK?)  Finally, I think I find the sister of one of my early high school friends on Facebook.  I send her a message asking if she is who I think she is.  I get a message back and it was her!  Wow!  This is great!  I will finally reconnect with my long, lost friend.

Not so fast.  After the initial contact with her, I asked her to have her brother contact me.  The next day, I received a response that I did not like.  Her brother had committed suicide 14 years ago.  My heart sunk to the floor.  Although it has been 20 years since we last saw each other, I felt an emptiness inside of me.  This social networking thing was pretty exciting up until this point.  I wonder if sometimes not knowing is better.

You know, it’s great to look at the new connections from my past, and see where they are in their life.  It’s neat to build this virtual world of “friends” of past and current.  I often wonder about the loss of the human element with these online relationships.  We tend to email more than call.  We all send text messages instead of calling.  These days, a phone call seems pretty personal to me.  Years ago, we were calling people too much and not personally interacting enough.  Funny how the times change, huh?

Now when asked if I am”online“, my answer will be “yes“.  Life is life, and I’ve decided that knowing about the past relationships that I have had is important, even if the truth is not what I want to hear.  For the current and new friendships that I have, I think that social networking can be exciting and can bring us closer together.  And as far as reconnecting with the past - it can help fill in the gaps of the unknown.

Ciao.