For those of you old enough to remember it, what was life like before the Internet? Now I'm not talking downloading music, movies and watching Porn for free. I'm talking about when you broke up with somebody and had to do drive bys of their house, so as you could come up with your own conclusions as to what they are doing now. Do people still do that? Or do they stalk the persons Facebook, Twitter etc to see where they may be and who they are with?
Sometimes not knowing things is better than knowing the truth. Or sometimes, knowing something but then actually seeing it for real (via Fb) can be a reality check harder than the one Lindsay Lohan gets after a stint in rehab/Jail.
Denial is a place I have always been happy to live in, at the end of the day I know that it actually happened but I'm a great person at just pretending it didn't. Move on, look strong. Unfortunately, I get the occasional urge to look somebody up on Fb (we've all done it). With all the changes lately to Fb, a lot of people don't realise that their pages are now completely open and that you can see everything. I love looking at photo's. Whether they are of people I know or not. I am a people watcher. No, not in a creepy way either! I like to observe people and see how although we are all humans, we all live different lives. This in turn has me looking up an ex (or 2), I am always interested to see who they ended up with and whether they had kids etc. If you still have friends in common then more than likely you know this stuff anyway. If one or both of you moved away, then it was a lot easier to lose track and not be in touch. Sometimes that is for the best, I mean you broke up for a reason. Other times, you broke up for no particular reasons, but it ended in a way that although you both moved on, it never actually quite closed that chapter. You stay in touch on and off over the years, but now with email, Fb, Twitter etc it is made so much easier to find people as well as keep in touch with them.
Which brings me back to the old thing that ignorance is bliss. Whilst you are friendly with this person, there are still certain things you don't discuss because as stated earlier you like to live in denial. So by not asking certain questions you can easily ignore the truth as it isn't quite a reality. That is until you happen across their Fb page and see the certain things that you kind of knew, but are now faced with acknowledging. It is very hard to just close the page and not look further. Temptation has always been a challenge for me. To the point where Xmas presents were disguised when wrapped so as I didn't try and work out what they were weeks before being able to open them. When it comes to big things, I have self control. I mean if I know it's illegal or something that will harm somebody then I have no problem saying no. Looking at somebody's photos etc on Fb that I'm not friends with, comes some where in the middle. Whilst it is not illegal, it does hurt somebody, that person being me. To hear something is hard, to see it in all it's glory in lots of photos, OUCH!! Yet, I still couldn't bring myself to close the page. I wanted to see more, glutton for punishment or just plain stupid? (no need to answer)
I love my Internet, I mean how a girl kept track of her future husband on the other side of the world in the days before Internet is beyond me. But sometimes, I realise that life was SO MUCH SIMPLER before Internet, or even text messages. Coming home after work to a message on your answering machine from the guy you were seeing was always a nice surprise. These days, we are in constant contact that we have come to expect them to always be in touch. Do we know too much or even share too much? If you wrote somebody a letter with all the things you post on FB, Twitter and Instagram do you really think they would care that you just had a slow drive to work or that you liked a strangers photos of food on Instagram? In a nutshell, you may well come across as some sort of nutter. Where as because there is now a platform where it is sociably acceptable to write all this, we do it! We not only do it, but we read others also.
There was no real point to this blog, which is why it has gone off on a tangent or two. Writing a blog about how much we share on the Internet has not lost it's irony on me either. This was more so a diary entry that I needed to get out but not actually discuss with anybody (see previous comment about denial) It's funny how writing something down for strangers to read, is easier than telling an actual family member or friend. I am the queen though, of writing just enough to show how I feel or what I'm thinking without giving the actual story away. I may write on a public forum, but I still like my privacy. There may well be a sequel to this blog, but for now, it is what it is. An observation with a few personal experiences thrown in......
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