How building bridges always leads to...

Erecting boundaries

That is what we end up doing when we poke our noses out of our electronic burrows... almost without fail. See we stick them out in the hope of finding people just like us... well alike enough that we can have the odd conversation with them at any rate. Without fail though, it always ends up more complicated than that. It is an ironic thing that in relationships such as these, one of the most important skills to learn is how to erect a boundary. Not from one's owner, but from the other people we come into contact with on public boards.

It is hard in these relationships to make friends, even ones on the net. The biggest problem is the complete lack of time to call your own. And boards are like black holes... you could probably lose hours to those things before you realise it. That lack of personal time is something that people pay lip service to... oh we understand. The thing is they don't really get it at all. In an average week one gets to spend about seven hours online... and that includes time writing the blog and helping mod the group. Everything one does online comes at the cost of something else... what one chooses to join, reply to and even the amount of conversations one has and with whom. 

When you have limited time you start developing a selection criterion. Decisions to accept friends requests is often based more on how non prolific they are than how much you like them. And if they are prolific is it interesting, enlightening, confronting, growth causing... the list gests more rigorous as time goes on. Otherwise you log on and find 150 odd posts that you have to sift through to find content to spend time on. In the end you keep those who you enjoy... and oddly enough they are often the quiet ones who are that way 'cos they have bugger all time as well.

Another issue is that where ever you go on Fet, you find people happily debating how you do things as a group or as an individual relationship. It becomes an issue seeing your life constantly dissected like this because it is usually being done by those who have never actually tried it, those who want to be doing it and those for whom it didn't work. It is not that it is just annoying, which it is, but that after a while it is just exhausting. The human psyche can only take so much of being grist for the mill before it starts to retreat.

Then of course the fun really starts 'cos no one likes rejection for whatever the reason. People make the assumption that we get annoyed with them because they "can't possibly get it" and in some cases they are right... to a point. As one has said before there is a huge difference between non-cohabiting relationship and having someone in your grill morning, noon and night. Of course we are usually dubbed as the mean elitists for saying that...

What people often don't understand is that what they perceive as us rejecting them, because they are not like us, is in fact us becoming overwhelmed. The only way we can stop the sheer volume of noise is to reduce our contact with people, the outside world... and there we are again. On the outside looking in... Secure in the knowledge that it shouldn't be this bloody complicated L