OK, I couldn’t help myself… that title came to me at the gym this morning, and I chuckled, realizing that it sounded precisely like something I would’ve written, (and been quite proud of) in undergrad.

 So, by way of disclaimer, I don’t think this post is especially insightful, or brilliant, or that it even justifies the bits, bytes, or whatever else are wasted between between my writing and your ill-considered reading.  Still, I persist, and I will admit I’m amused by the self-referential irony of a post about a flavor of neo-exhibitionism trying and failing to satisfy the need for some sort of seminal relationship, some feeling of connectedness or “belonging-to”.

I, like everyone else, am inundated with inputs every day relating to social networks and other sorts of virtual touches that are facilitated or intermediated by technology, specifically networking technology.  I’ve written before about how people of “my generation”, (the thirty-somethings), have really taken to Facebook with an almost pathological passion.  I myself am guilty of checking in on old highschool friends, triggering nostalgia-sometimes-bordering-on-depression and often resulting in some random twitter about how old I feel.  The core of it seems to be, for me at least, that I have some faint memory of how incredible it felt to be that closeto people, to a fairly large group of people, and to feel like my life, my well-being, my interests, my emotions – were all somehow tangled up with, if not always completely aligned with, theirs.  I think I’ve settled on the conclusion that losing that seems to be a related to the process of maturing into real adulthood.  Maybe we have to become more emotionally disconnected (or at least focused on a very small core group of family/dependants), to manage the increased responsibilities that come with taking on “real life”.  I can’t help but think of that quote in Breakfast Club, that when you grow old, you inevitably become like your parents, in that your heart dies.  It really seemed that way, at times, looking down the road at adulthood from the passionate and intensely conflicted perspective of youth.

Jumping back to social networks, I can’t help but think they’re somehow a thin, sorry, and possibly dangerously illusory substitute for those real relationships we miss so desparately.  It’s like emotional fast food; it’s perpetually available, always there when you need a quick fix, seemingly satisfying in the moment, but nutritionally empty, and maybe even toxic when taken to gross excess.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m no luddite.  I’m so far the opposite that you’d have to know me to understand.  I tweet and post to facebook from my iphone, I have at least 8 computers in my home, (where I live alone, at the moment, save the dogs), and I maintain multiple websites for no immediately obvious reason.  I love technology, and I don’t want to imagine what my life would be like without the Internet.  I’m also not some socially-retarded shut-in.  I have, (I believe), very healthy relationships in my life, and I sincerely think that those who know me best will agree that I’m blessed with regard to friends, love, and family.  And I interact with all of the important people in my life, at least in part, across the very media that give me pause.  I appreciate the immediacy of those relationships that would never before have been possible.

 Still, I wonder how, in the midst of all of our tweets, status updates, friend requests and other white noise, the way we think and feel about one another, and how we create, maintain, and ultimately let go of relationships, is changing as a result of this perpetual and pervasive interconnectedness.