lonely, baby i'm not, i've got my imaginary friends

Being unemployed means I have lots of time to spend uploading old pix to Flickr (which in turn makes me miss our friends something fierce) and doing silly things on Facebook. I joined Facebook only recently and was never on it until we moved and now I needle people into joining so we can chat and stay in touch. I don’t really know why but My Space skeeves me out and Facebook doesn’t. Maybe because it started out as only being available to the academic community and because I’ve seen so many silly pages on My Space (grown women with pictures of sparkly pink ponies and shit). Not that there aren’t skeevy groups on Facebook (apparently enough guys agree that handjobs suck to form a group).

And I’ve joined San Diego groups and even started a group for other newbies but so far I’ve only met 18 and 20-year-old girls. I’m too old to make friends with 18-year-olds, dude. I can’t even comprehend their language. One girl wrote “I’m the real FFG” in her description and I have no idea what that means. Even Google couldn’t enlighten me. Another girl wrote for her favorite music – “nething I can move too”. Ug. And when I look at the pages of random people in San Diego, I always find something that makes go “Next!” I tell myself I’m not being a snob, just realistic. If someone’s politically very conservative, is into Nascar, and loves country, we’re probably not going to click.

(I am a snob about spelling mistakes though. And I don’t mean typos, I make typos all the time. But if someone talks about something that “peeks” their interest, I roll my eyes and move on. Today I found a food blog where someone talked about their “pallet”. For the love of God, if you’re going to write about food, use the correct word!)

Nor do I have any illusions about how quickly someone could rule me out based on my info. If I was a 20-year-old girl who liked to party and listen to Incubus, why in God’s name would I want to make friends with someone who’s almost 30, watches sci-fi, and when it comes to music is clearly an indie tool? As if!

It’s not very rational for me to be so pessimistic about making friends online, considering, you know, how I met the Husband. But I still think of that as one of those amazing, odds defying lucky things. And if I saw someone online who was in my age range and loved Alton Brown and John Cusack movies and geeky shows and could quote the Big Lebowski, well then let’s talk.

But when I think about all the qualities I value in the friends I left behind, their humor, their warmth, their quirkiness and massive brains and the rare and perfect combination of someone who’s a good companion and fun to pal around with but also a good person who’s true of heart and would do anything for you, it gets hard to imagine finding all that on a computer screen (Again, not very rational. If I can meet the love of my life online, why not just a friend?). But I hope someone proves me wrong.