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“I just want a friend to talk to.”
“Friends, anyone?”
So begin dozens upon dozens of listings under the “strictly platonic” section of this region’s Craigslist, an online classifieds site. They read like singles’ ads (“Must love dogs,” “I’m loyal and intelligent...”), and the similarities to modern romance (and its evolution in the Internet age) don’t stop there. The prize these folks seek may be as elusive as true love: a good friend. Not virtual, but a live, flesh-and-blood best bud. They’re hoping the Web can help.
Few would argue that we, as a society, are desperate for connections; desperate to maintain and re-establish old ones, to make new ones. It doesn’t take much to “make” a friend in the virtual world. Just a few clicks of the mouse and you’ve added a new face to your friend cache.
About half of adults worldwide (and half of U.S. teens) who use the Web have made friends there, according to recently released findings of Norton Online Living Report, which polled about 9,000 Web users worldwide.
The report also found that about half of adult Internet users who’ve made online buddies say they like their online relationships “as much or more than friendships made offline.”
Still, a year-old British study says that while more people were striking up friendships online, those relationships aren’t nearly as “close” as connections made in person.
How could they be? A virtual friend — even one you really enjoy IM’ing — can’t accompany you to a movie, or hand you tissues when you cry.
“Everyone needs someone they can call and say, ‘Guess what happened to me today,’ or ‘Let’s go to dinner,’ ” said 27-year-old Tracy Canaday, who has had trouble making real connections since moving from Roanoke, Va., to Green Island, N.Y., with her boyfriend and 9-year-old son last fall.
“I hear people at work talking about their friends and what they did, and I think, ‘You don’t know what I would give to have that,’ ” she said.
As stories of successful online romantic pairings become commonplace, friend-seekers are hoping for the same kind of virtual-to-actual matchmaking: Let’s chat a bit, then meet for coffee, see if we hit it off.
According to the Norton report, about two-thirds of Web-using American adults say they’ve met at least one of their online friends in person. (A super-social 12 percent said they’ve personally met 11 or more online buddies.)
Consider it a new twist on a newish trend in fulfilling the primal human need for a BFF — Best Friend Forever.
Why are some of us having such a tough time making flesh and blood friends?
Simply put, say scholars, it’s because we don’t get out like we used to.
In the 1970s, two-thirds of Americans belonged to social groups. By the late 1990s, two-thirds did not, according to Harvard public policy professor and author Robert D. Putnam in his 2000 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.
Career-minded Americans change residences often and move longer distances, leaving behind family and friends. Meanwhile, technology points you evermore toward the couch.
Maintaining actual social ties has become a “real problem,” said Richard Lachmann, a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Albany. “People live in one place, work in another, and spend all their time in the car. It does encourage isolation.”
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