Friday 9 January 2015

"Why don't we talk anymore?": Dead Friendships and Social Media

Originally produced for my fetlife writing page I decided this would be good here too (I really enjoyed writing it!):

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When I lived overseas I stayed in a small town where even a ten-min trip to the shop would turn into a night out as I'd run into someone I'd know, we'd get talking then head to one of the nearby bars for happy hour drinks, then another bar, then another until I was staggering home drunk with my squashed loaf of bread thinking, "shit, how am I going to get up in the morning!"

Something shifted when I came home though to a huge city where if I go to my local supermarket, I am completely anonymous. I walk the isles finding what I need and pop it on the counter before flipping open my phone to a text message from someone about the weekend. I hardly connect with the check out chick (saying hi, how are you right back at her) then go home.

Every moment of my life is planned: I work five days' a week and plan my weekends before they happen. There is very little room for spontaneity and excitement which may be why I enjoy my time at local BDSM clubs.

Something I've noticed about disconnected Australian's though is that we're always somewhere else: at dinner mother and daughter are on their phones, chatting to their friends on facebook. Every few months I receive yet another email from someone who I used to know (kinky people more than not) asking, "Why don't we talk anymore?" to my surprise and often a response of, "Because we don't? Because we moved on in our lives and I'm living right now in the present. I've no need to look into the past."

When did Aussie's get so out of synch with what's happening right now? Why do people find living a life online to be more rewarding than living in the here and now? Will the BDSM "grow out of" this phase and go back to real time relationships and using fetlife and other tools as just that - tools to maintain connections they already have?

Just something to get you thinking on this mildly cold summer day.

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