The Four Kinds Of People You Meet Online

I have been on Facebook for a little over a year and have been a part of the blogging world of Google Plus for about four months. At first I was very leery and suspicious of people wanting to engage in chatting with me. But soon I grew to accept a few requests. I have found that there are four kinds of people that you can meet online.

Friends

It is wonderful to meet people that have the same interests as you. I have found groups of writers, sailors, dog people, and cat people. One nice young man has introduced me to the group of The Iron Writer. There you can compete in flash fiction challenges. It is a great group of people. I have met friends through other writing competitions online. On Google Plus there are many people willing and able to share their knowledge and expertise and you can have them in your "circles". Google Plus uses circles much as Facebook uses "friends". 

Great Friends

The young man I mentioned above, I will call him M.W., falls in this category. We have chatted and I have followed his blog. He is a very talented guy and a great writer and I enjoy our chats. Then there is L, who I met when I first joined Facebook. I met her through a game and she has become a dear friend who is always there for me and her other Facebook friends. She is very special to me. And I have to include N, whom I wrote about in a previous post Words With Friends Friends. She, I am happy to say, is still there for me to play with after all these months and I love chatting with her when we are playing. I really appreciate her.

Now I am so happy to say that in my great friends category I can include MK. About a month ago she posted in a cat group and I sent her a friend request. We seemed to have some things in common. Well, we have a lot in common. She started Facebook chatting with me about a week ago and I swear we are like two peas in a pod. When she says she likes something, it is always something that I also like. And vice versa. We have started chatting every day and, since we both seem to be on the computer all day, it turns into chatting off and on all day. And at night. She is like me, up at weird hours, and if I see that she is on I know I have someone to talk to if needed. The only bad thing about our relationship so far is the distance. She lives clear on the other side of the country, so we won't be going out for coffee any time soon, which is a shame. It has been a joy chatting with her and I hope we continue to talk like we have been.

Creepy People

Ah, these are the ones that scare you. The ones who, upon accepting their friend request or including them in your circles, send the ever popular and very sexy, "You must video with me now". These are the ones that refuse to accept the fact that you don't want to see them naked. "Nope," you think as you quickly block them. Nope. Nope. Nope. Although it is something that puts me off I wonder just how many times that has worked for them, if at all. I try to see them for the sad, lonely people that they must be but sometimes it is difficult.

Slow Stalkers

These are the people that seem fine at first. Just wanting to chat. So you chat. Then as time goes on they seem less fine and start making remarks about loneliness and relationships and how they are in love with you. And just after a couple of months, too. How lucky am I? With one man I determined that he thought that the pictures of my son's girlfriend were actually pictures of me. Nothing that I said deterred him in his thinking. Unfriend. Block.

As it is with most things in life, I have found that the good outweighs the bad. The relationships that I have online outnumber the relationships I have in the material world. I can't and don't get out much so these online friends are very important to me. They are my contact with the human race. 

I would recommend that you not be as leery as I was at first. Who knows who I missed out on knowing by being skittish when I first joined the online world.

Have you met anyone online that has become special to you?

Facebook Therapy Is Good

I wasn't going to post today. (Well, now that would be yesterday.) I have been in high anxiety mode for most of the day.

Those of us with MDD (Major Depressive Disorder) are also plagued by anxiety. When the anxiety partners with the repetitious thoughts that the MDD brings to the table, it can be a perfect storm. All day today was racing thoughts and panic attacks.

The repeating thoughts started easily enough. This morning, bright and early, I Facebook chatted with my youngest son. Just as we ended the short chat, in which we both said I love you, this thought popped into my head: "What if this is the last time I talk to him or he talks to me?". For the rest of the day today my brain has been trying to convince me that something horrible was going to happen to him or to me. I had to leave the house for an appointment that I had to keep. Surely I was going to get t-boned by a truck or he was going to wreck on his way home from work. Over and over today I sought distractions. Some worked, but only briefly.

As you can see, I am still here. And I haven't gotten a phone call every parent dreads. So all day was spent frozen in fear for no reason other than my brain was having its way with me. The feelings of impending doom proved false, for today.

That's stupid, you may say, why not just tell yourself that the thoughts are silly and get on with your day? Oh, if I only could. If only.

Eventually the distraction of the interweb won out and I can breath a bit easier now, which is good because it's bedtime. A nice long Facebook chat with a Facebook friend helped quite a bit. It was a little Facebook therapy. Sometimes it helps to talk about it. But sometimes it doesn't. I never know until I am faced with talking to another person.

As for today, the Facebook therapy worked. Eventually. I am grateful for the friend and for the many posts in my newsfeed that tried to keep my brain occupied. And I am grateful to you, for reading this post about what it is like to be me sometimes.

Hopefully my brain exhausted itself today and tomorrow will be uneventful. I can only hope.