Friday, July 03, 2009
cyber friendship
a couple of years ago a company collegue from uk travelled to meet me in bangkok for a meeting. he is one of those people who are afraid of flying. his aerophobia was quite acute that at one stage of the flight he had a nightmare and imagined the plane was on fire. as we get to know each other better he told a small secret. he is now married to a girl he got to know from the internet dating site. i always thought that all these sites and chat rooms where people hunt for partners are only for simple no string attached and no -frill bonking. but if a scientist (as my collegue is) can find a good wife on the net, there must be something more to these sites than i give credit for.
making friends and even getting hitched based on long distance friendship isn't new of course. in the pre internet days many school kids have 'pen-pals' . you pay a small sum and choose three friends from countries of your choice and soon you'll be writing letters back and forth with your new friends. i remember almost all my male friends choose young girls from uk, sweeden or denmark and none from the poor countries like bangladesh , cambodia or vietnam. and the writing can sometimes get crazier and crazier or in most cases the friendship slowly fizzled out and met a slow death. but one friend aimed a bit lower. some magazines used to have back pages full of photos and addresses of people who want to make new friends. he chose one and diligently wooed her and in the end to cut the story short he managed to marry the girl.
virtual friendship can lead to all sorts of things and this phenomenon isn't new except that these days with myspace or facebook and other social networking sites making friends can not be easier. there was an interesting article (somewhere) comparing myspace and facebook and the conclusion was myspace is more for people of the 'lower class' compared to facebook which have more educated class. not too sure about that as i see a lot of idiots milling about in facebook....at least judging from their inane and asinine posts. or could it be that i'm missing the point? but i mean, if your cyber friends see it fit to post things like...nak makan jap...or nak tido...or going shopping for milo...i mean, what the fuck?
another interesting scociological observation made by another article (somewhere) was how young people vying with each other to have more friends on their facebook. less than a thousand isn't acceptable and you're a social outcast. and therefore they will start inviting new friends from all over the world.
well, i personally consider myself lucky if i can call 3 persons as my real friends but on the other hand , that isn't a bad idea. having lots of virtual friends i mean. create a persona for yourself on cyberspace and invite new friends from all over the globe. and so i started doing just that. a very simple matter to invite young things from all sort of places to become friends. that's easy. they'll 'accept' immediately. then i stepped a gear higher. i checked some famous local names. and i immediately hit a snag. some accepted immediately, some a bit slower and some didn't. a case in point is tian chua. this PKR guy is one interesting bloke and i'd love to be accepted as his 'friend' but the fucker hasn't accepted till now. never mind. there are millions of people who are willing to be my friend. and so i revved up a gear higher. i thought hell, why don't i become friends with famous authors? so i searched salman rushdie. another snag. search results came up with lists of salman rushdies but you only can become a fan of him. fuck, i don't want to become a fan of anybody , not even of sir dickhead. i want to be a friend. and so i tried another name. martin amis...and the same thing happened. can only become a fan. and so i gave up on these big headed authors.
and i tried politicians next. the first name of a politician i want to be a friend with is ahmadinejad of iran. and dang! the same thing happened. i can only become a fan. so i 'lowered my expectation a bit and searched local politicians...i saw mahathir's name there...but no...i'm not interested in this guy. i searched a few others ...TG Hadi Awang is now a friend which is very funny as i've been insulting him so many times in this blog for his hare brained UG idea. -but since only about five people come to this blog anyway, i'm safe. the likelihood of him stumbling here is just about the same probability of me getting hit by a meteorite. anwar ibrahim still hasn't accept, and when i invited her daughter nurul izzah the reply came that sorry, she already has her limit of 5000 or whatever number of friends allowed by facebook. hmmm... i only have about 80, a long way to go!
but i have another interesting problem which is very enlightening.
Yesterday i became a friend with tuan ibrahim tuan man...he is one of the three current vice presidents of PAS and the number three most important leaders of PAS (after TG HA Awang, and Nasaruddin mat isa - not accounting TGNA who is above it all of course).
one of his posts in facebook yesterday was about how the satans are trying very hard to split PAS because of the UG fiasco. I made a small comment to his post which goes something like this:..
...but we must also ask, if satan has sneaked into the turbans (of PAS) ? which create this fiasco in the first place? and why the angels did not inspire PAS leaders to be proactive and ask umno people to join PAS instead of clamouring for this vague concept of UG?
one hour later i found out that my name was promptly removed from his friend list. interesting that he does not appreciate honest dissenting voice. apparently he can call others satan but can not tolerate honest questions wondering if satan can sneak into turbans. i hope the site is only manned by his idiotic officers rather than himself and it's not his doing. all the same it is disturbing to think that PAS have this kind of intolerant idiots as leaders.
some are lucky enough to even get married with their cyber friends and some don't even get to keep their friends for one day. never mind. sometimes i think it would be good if you can find your soul mate in cyberspace, you know , something like 84 charing cross road ?
but one can't ask too much. i think i'm going to do a different thing today. may be invite film stars, actresses , famous people to be your friend? i may start with paris hilton...but some people say she has herpes....
making friends and even getting hitched based on long distance friendship isn't new of course. in the pre internet days many school kids have 'pen-pals' . you pay a small sum and choose three friends from countries of your choice and soon you'll be writing letters back and forth with your new friends. i remember almost all my male friends choose young girls from uk, sweeden or denmark and none from the poor countries like bangladesh , cambodia or vietnam. and the writing can sometimes get crazier and crazier or in most cases the friendship slowly fizzled out and met a slow death. but one friend aimed a bit lower. some magazines used to have back pages full of photos and addresses of people who want to make new friends. he chose one and diligently wooed her and in the end to cut the story short he managed to marry the girl.
virtual friendship can lead to all sorts of things and this phenomenon isn't new except that these days with myspace or facebook and other social networking sites making friends can not be easier. there was an interesting article (somewhere) comparing myspace and facebook and the conclusion was myspace is more for people of the 'lower class' compared to facebook which have more educated class. not too sure about that as i see a lot of idiots milling about in facebook....at least judging from their inane and asinine posts. or could it be that i'm missing the point? but i mean, if your cyber friends see it fit to post things like...nak makan jap...or nak tido...or going shopping for milo...i mean, what the fuck?
another interesting scociological observation made by another article (somewhere) was how young people vying with each other to have more friends on their facebook. less than a thousand isn't acceptable and you're a social outcast. and therefore they will start inviting new friends from all over the world.
well, i personally consider myself lucky if i can call 3 persons as my real friends but on the other hand , that isn't a bad idea. having lots of virtual friends i mean. create a persona for yourself on cyberspace and invite new friends from all over the globe. and so i started doing just that. a very simple matter to invite young things from all sort of places to become friends. that's easy. they'll 'accept' immediately. then i stepped a gear higher. i checked some famous local names. and i immediately hit a snag. some accepted immediately, some a bit slower and some didn't. a case in point is tian chua. this PKR guy is one interesting bloke and i'd love to be accepted as his 'friend' but the fucker hasn't accepted till now. never mind. there are millions of people who are willing to be my friend. and so i revved up a gear higher. i thought hell, why don't i become friends with famous authors? so i searched salman rushdie. another snag. search results came up with lists of salman rushdies but you only can become a fan of him. fuck, i don't want to become a fan of anybody , not even of sir dickhead. i want to be a friend. and so i tried another name. martin amis...and the same thing happened. can only become a fan. and so i gave up on these big headed authors.
and i tried politicians next. the first name of a politician i want to be a friend with is ahmadinejad of iran. and dang! the same thing happened. i can only become a fan. so i 'lowered my expectation a bit and searched local politicians...i saw mahathir's name there...but no...i'm not interested in this guy. i searched a few others ...TG Hadi Awang is now a friend which is very funny as i've been insulting him so many times in this blog for his hare brained UG idea. -but since only about five people come to this blog anyway, i'm safe. the likelihood of him stumbling here is just about the same probability of me getting hit by a meteorite. anwar ibrahim still hasn't accept, and when i invited her daughter nurul izzah the reply came that sorry, she already has her limit of 5000 or whatever number of friends allowed by facebook. hmmm... i only have about 80, a long way to go!
but i have another interesting problem which is very enlightening.
Yesterday i became a friend with tuan ibrahim tuan man...he is one of the three current vice presidents of PAS and the number three most important leaders of PAS (after TG HA Awang, and Nasaruddin mat isa - not accounting TGNA who is above it all of course).
one of his posts in facebook yesterday was about how the satans are trying very hard to split PAS because of the UG fiasco. I made a small comment to his post which goes something like this:..
...but we must also ask, if satan has sneaked into the turbans (of PAS) ? which create this fiasco in the first place? and why the angels did not inspire PAS leaders to be proactive and ask umno people to join PAS instead of clamouring for this vague concept of UG?
one hour later i found out that my name was promptly removed from his friend list. interesting that he does not appreciate honest dissenting voice. apparently he can call others satan but can not tolerate honest questions wondering if satan can sneak into turbans. i hope the site is only manned by his idiotic officers rather than himself and it's not his doing. all the same it is disturbing to think that PAS have this kind of intolerant idiots as leaders.
some are lucky enough to even get married with their cyber friends and some don't even get to keep their friends for one day. never mind. sometimes i think it would be good if you can find your soul mate in cyberspace, you know , something like 84 charing cross road ?
but one can't ask too much. i think i'm going to do a different thing today. may be invite film stars, actresses , famous people to be your friend? i may start with paris hilton...but some people say she has herpes....
