A DSL-Kind of Friendship
During the weekend trip to D.C., I got a chance to hang out with Mike. Mike (or Michael, as he apparently now calls himself) and I met in 1987 in Sight and Sound: Video at NYU. [Completely random side note: I hate it when I'm convinced that I've blogged something before but then can't find it. I wonder, "Should I blog it and risk repeating myself? Or err on the side of just leaving some things unsaid." For now, we're going with unsaid.] Sight and Sound was one of the basic requirements for every upper-level course, and we all took the film semester with enthusiasm. If I recall correctly, video was less interesting. Most of us didn't have any desire to work in video (and really, I just wanted to sit behind a typewriter writing scripts--yes, a typewriter which was much cooler, more retro, more Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley than the Brother Word Processor I owned at the time), but a requirement is a requirement. What I find frightening is I remember about five people from the class, which includes our teacher who, if I recall, mispronounced Wim Wenders name (she said it with a "w" sound, not a "v" sound, which just goes to prove that everyone does remember every stupid little thing you do). Yet Mike just sent me a list of our classmates, and it turns out, there were a lot of them! I'm amazed that he can remember all those people. Sure, once I read the list, I thought, "Oh, yeah! I remember him! Oh, yeah, he made that awful video." But there were some names on the list where all I can say is "huh?" I'm drawing a complete blank on these folks.
The last time I had seen Mike was in 1989. I had just graduated college, and on a whim I went to France. I was walking down the street in Paris when I ran into Mike. He was on vacation with his family. So, how much has changed in fifteen years? Interestingly, not that much. We've entered a new age of friendships. Even though it's been fifteen years since I'd seen Mike, we've been in contact for the past couple of years over e-mail and of course through our blogs. Getting together with him was oddly familiar. I didn't need to catch up with him in the usual sense of, "So, what have you been doing the past fifteen years?" I already knew where he was working, who he was dating, what he did for fun. It was kind of like having a Sunday brunch with someone you see all the time. Only we don't.
It's amazing to me how the Internet has changed the dynamics of friendship so much. In my freshman psychology class I learned that the number one determiner of friendship was proximity. The Internet, to a certain degree, removes that. I have friends I never see, but that doesn't mean they aren't friends. In fact, with some friends (and I won't name names here, but if I were to name names, the name Eugene would be the first to come to mind), I know more about them because of the Web than I ever did in person. Eugene is such a closed person in real life; you never know how he feels (not even when you push and push and needle and plead--not, of course, that I would ever do that--to find out even the basics such as "Are you dating?" and "So what's up with that job of yours?"). Yet, I learn so much about him from his blog. Eugene's former roommate (hi, Sang!) once said to me, "If it weren't for Eugene's blog, I'd never know what he was up to!" So all of you friends who don't have blogs, what are you waiting for?
The last time I had seen Mike was in 1989. I had just graduated college, and on a whim I went to France. I was walking down the street in Paris when I ran into Mike. He was on vacation with his family. So, how much has changed in fifteen years? Interestingly, not that much. We've entered a new age of friendships. Even though it's been fifteen years since I'd seen Mike, we've been in contact for the past couple of years over e-mail and of course through our blogs. Getting together with him was oddly familiar. I didn't need to catch up with him in the usual sense of, "So, what have you been doing the past fifteen years?" I already knew where he was working, who he was dating, what he did for fun. It was kind of like having a Sunday brunch with someone you see all the time. Only we don't.
It's amazing to me how the Internet has changed the dynamics of friendship so much. In my freshman psychology class I learned that the number one determiner of friendship was proximity. The Internet, to a certain degree, removes that. I have friends I never see, but that doesn't mean they aren't friends. In fact, with some friends (and I won't name names here, but if I were to name names, the name Eugene would be the first to come to mind), I know more about them because of the Web than I ever did in person. Eugene is such a closed person in real life; you never know how he feels (not even when you push and push and needle and plead--not, of course, that I would ever do that--to find out even the basics such as "Are you dating?" and "So what's up with that job of yours?"). Yet, I learn so much about him from his blog. Eugene's former roommate (hi, Sang!) once said to me, "If it weren't for Eugene's blog, I'd never know what he was up to!" So all of you friends who don't have blogs, what are you waiting for?
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