Reaching Out

I am often accused rightfully of ignoring friends, failing to keep in touch and letting the important relationships wither. I am the kind of person that does not actively seek to connect to other people, no matter how close they are to me. Perhaps this personality comes from my childhood, which surrounded me with truly caring friends and understanding peers.

In this digital age, it is as simple as pressing some buttons to send a message. The conversation will follow automatically, and the friendship is strengthened. For me it is however an unfamiliar action, one that I would not consciously do in normal conditions.

When I find myself doing this though, is when something tickles me in a way. Sometimes I dream of someone with such deep impression, that I open up a channel to tell them about the dream (provided that they are interested in my dreams, and the particular dream is not too disturbing).

Sometimes when I come across a friend's SNS post, fav or like it, the person responds, and a friendly exchange ensues. These contacts are like a stochastic process, a chemical reaction at the molecular scale.

To make it clear, I am really disgusted at the current state of most social network services, and I feel ashamed for having used the terminology that they have promoted. But I think the underlying idea, the mechanism, is beneficial. By lowering the threshold of interaction to a click (touch), there is a bigger chance that an introvert like me will still be able to reach out.

To continue the chemics analogy, interactions are like particle collisions in the collision theory, and these micro-interactions have lower activation energy for me to striking up a conversation.

I should get used to starting conversations, and maintain those relationships that really matter to me.