This post will appear particularly self-indulgent: it’s trying to articulate something that I haven’t managed well out loud. It’s also one of those awkward situations where the post is really meant for a specific group of people but is on a public blog. And besides, I’ve only dared to write it because Nick told me to. So do feel free to leave at this point.

After my marriage broke up three and a half years ago I didn’t really have any friends in Birmingham that I could just drop in on (or maybe I did, but I tend to need explicit permission else I feel intrusive). They are all in couples and some have children. And most are mutual friends: I didn’t want to put them in the awkward position of being in the middle (and I felt awkward too) so I would just hide away from them. And in any case they are rarely free at weekends.

They would encourage me to try and meet people. I really wanted to but I didn’t know how, and would just wander around town drinking coffee, reading, watching people, and berating myself for never talking to anyone. I did that pretty much every weekend for three years, to the point that I hated weekends.

Then one evening a friend invited me to a pub to meet a few Birmingham bloggers. I had a blog that I updated about as often as my cat went outside (she hates going outside: I have to chuck her out the front so that she has to walk round to the back to be let in; it’s the only exercise she gets). I had also tried dabbling with Twitter, but I updated that even less frequently. So I went along; partly out of curiosity, but mainly in order to return the camera that my friend had accidentally left with me. I felt awkward, presumed I’d made a tit of myself, and eventually went home wishing I’d never gone and vowing never to go again.

The next morning, to my great surprise, I discovered that the people I thought I’d made a fool of myself in front of had started following me on Twitter. So I followed back.

Since then I’ve been involved (admittedly with varying levels of reliability on my part) with Birmingham bloggers, Birmingham Social Media Cafe, Eleven hours on the Eleven Bus, Twitpanto, Big City Talk, Digital Mentors, We Share Stuff, Rhubarb Radio, 4am Project, BARG, and any number of other activities that result from a criss-cross of each other. And more importantly I’ve found a lot of friends, including some that I hope will allow me to call them fairly close friends.

I won’t name people because it wouldn’t be fair, but I could easily list twenty who I see fairly regularly and would regard as friends; and seven or eight of those are particularly important to me. And bear in mind that I’m not usually good at thinking of people as ‘friends’. I tend to love people and want to befriend them, but presume they don’t feel the same; and I get very low if I think I’ve upset them or said something stupid (which happens pretty much all the time). So it takes me a long time to feel comfortable with people and to presume I’m worthy of being labeled their ‘friend’.

Except, with the speed of conversation – both inane and important – that happens on Twitter, friendships flourished much more quickly than I could have imagined.

But, like I said, it’s not just down to Twitter. It helped the process, and without it I would probably never have met these people; but the people had to be there in the first place. And lovely people have lovely friends, and so the networks grow.

And that’s the tangible part. Since meeting these people a mere eight months ago, my social life has transformed. In a good way, because I have lots of friends and people to go drinking with.

However it’s also very strange, because I still don’t understand what people see in me. (I’m not trying to be pittyingly self-effacing, this is leading up to something; bear with me.) I love interacting with these people, and I think every one of them is pretty remarkable.

But not me. I’m just me: bumbling, insecure and too scared of change to do anything at all (except escape my house as often as I can). So when someone made a website in tribute of me I didn’t really know how to deal with it. People affectionately (I believe) posted up stuff that I’d done or said.

It’s very sweet, but why me? Why not one of the others? I can think of plenty of people who are way more worthy. The thing is, do they see it? I don’t see what’s so special about me; in fact I’m convinced that nothing is. Apparently some people disagree with me; but would they recognise themselves as being special? Probably not.

So I want them to know that – for every one of them who has posted to that site – I would have had it the other way round.

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(Mosaics were correct at the time of writing.)

Friends

These are the profiles which I find interesting enough to follow:

Followers

And these are all the folk who – for reasons known only to themselves – are happy to listen to me wittering on:

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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Pete Ashton recently wrote about how we should put more of ourselves into our online activity, as that is what gives it meaning. I agree, although I’m not sure it’s any different from offline activity. And it depends on why you’re active in that realm in the first place.

If your intention is to grow a network of friends or professional contacts then yes, the more you can engage in an honest and personal way the better. However I personally have no problem with people just broadcasting if that’s what they feel comfortable with, or if they’re simply having fun doing it.

However I do tend to agree with Pete’s idea that people bond around ‘pointless, transient, silly and fun things’. I think this is because they are actually safe and easy ways to form connections with other people (something we tend to crave). This is certainly what I’ve been getting out of blogging and Twitter. And as a result, as Pete suggests, this has led to more serious discussions and collaborations (such as the recent re-writing of Birmingham’s Big City Plan).

Use of the internet does not in itself create frinedships. I suspect that those friendships formed purely through Twitter will be much less durable than those that have also developed offline, especially now that Twitter is getting so big and people are spreading themselves much more thinly.  What the internet does offer is a way of discovering and cementing friendships much more quickly than ever before. But the way we engage in those friendships is really no different.

I was recently encouraged to participate in a sort of  ‘chain letter’. I had to write seven things about myself that other people may not know, then pass the task on to seven others. I don’t usually like this sort of thing because it makes me feel obliged to do something I’m not entirely comfortable with else feel guilty for letting someone down; and angry with that person for obliging me to do it in the first place.

But this one was passed to me just after I’d read Pete’s post, and around the time that Jon Hickman had set up @cluedo on Twitter (which encouraged people to discover someone’s identity by asking questions of them). So the ‘chain letter’ seemed an ideal way of further developing new friendships: I was genuinely keen to discover more about the people I was getting to know, in their words, and to share (just a little bit) more of myself.

As a result I know that Nicky didn’t start talking until she was three years-old, Jon doesn’t like vegetables, Midge regrets not taking his physics degree seriously and Bruce is actually quite shy. Not greatly illuminating in themselves, but they all help to create richer connections between these people.

We don’t use the internet because we’re friendless, unintersting geeks who sit at home blogging and twittering because we have no life: we use it precisely in order to support and enrich our thoroughly active offline lives.

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