Social Butterfly, I?

Not to long ago, if someone mentioned that I should join MySpace, or Facebook or any other myriad of other social networking sites I would have mocked them...and taunt them even. My impression, and it still seems like this, is that of being in a high school clique. Soon memories of a socially ackward teenager emerged from hiding to haunt me. Sorry folks, anytime my dorky self at 15 comes out, its usual time to cop an attitude and leave in a melodramatic huff.

But like any social phenomena that starts on the web, I would become a victim to peer pressure. At first I started slowly with LinkIn. After all, I had just came out of a horrible bout of finding employment, and networking is key to getting a job nowadays. Soon, I linked to all the people I worked at in my lost job and started to reconnect with them there.

Then Twitter came into my life, and I found myself randomly scribing silly thoughts. The format of twitter fit my short-attention span that is my creativity, and I can "twit" from anywhere using my cell phone. I love Twitter. It challenged me as a writer to write my thoughts and hopes in 145 characters or less. And it proved to be a savior at work, where days lately have been filled with mindless tasks in front of the computer, with little human contact because work flowing into the office has trickled to a droplet. I slowly acquired some followers and followees, never in the realm of internet success, but enough for me, who in real life is extremely shy.

I became a regular on Facebook, due to happenstance. My nephew turned one, and when I saw him last, I had a conversation with his mother. She, like me, wasn't a fan of social networking sites, but it was a good way to post pictures of the baby. Since I don't get to see him very much, I very much wanted to see him grow up, if from a distance. Then M posted pictures of a ride he took from his motorcycle.

Soon, I became connected to my family and people whom I grew up with. And it dawned on me, this is why social networking sites thrive. Ok, yes for those whose social graces are more like social wallflowers than butterflies, this is a wonderful way to meet people and feel that you are not so lonely in a cold world. But for me, it was re-connecting with the people with the past, whose lives are all over country, yet close enough with a click of link. I was connecting with friends from the East Coast, my brother in the Kansas, and my cousins in the California.

Perhaps, at my time of my life, I'm starting to open up to people again from my self imposed exhile. But, its wonderful to see those whom you've havent heard from in years.