Virtual to real

There was a blog post (Losing a friend, virtually) about the death of a virtual friend that narrated how the virtual world of social media has opened avenues for new relationship. In my case, a 'virtual friendship' flowered into a meeting and another ended abruptly.

I have a habit of offering advice. As I also don't seem to understand what the other person wants to share, I seldom send a 'friend request' to anyone.

Once, I got a friendship request from a woman. I unfailingly ‘like’ her philosophical musings and she ‘like’s my Tamil poems.

During one of her visits to my city, she told my wife that I write good Tamil poems and asked her whether she liked them. My wife told her that she liked some of them.

Later, I wrote a poem on her which she ‘like’d and commented ‘I am honoured’. The friendship continues.

Now to a friendship that ended as abruptly as it began. When a woman sent me a ‘friend request’ on FB, I accepted it. When I asked her how she chose me as a friend without seeing my face, she said she liked my posts. She had separated from her husband. As I sensed a haunting pain and lonliness within her, I advised her either to have a compromise or divorce him. After this, she just stopped communicating with me.

Though I still don’t understand what might have made her end a friendship she herself chose, I became aware of the unknown mines that exist in social media friendships wherein there is no pointer/index to know the other person’s mind. Here we need some other virtue to know the other person’s mind as there is no ‘face’ to show it and even if it is shown, we don’t know whether it is true or false.

Tail piece:

Bind the world with love first

As the shadow follows one

Other virtues will follow suit

Oh love! how tender and sweet are you

Genderless, a language without words