There are over 6 billion people on your planet, of which, assuming nothing too fancy goes on with your lifespan, you’re unlikely
ever to meet more than a few thousand. It’s a sad fact that the vast majority of the human race, with all their unique insight and experience, will forever remain cut off from you.
The internet makes things a little better, it can’t do anything about us having a limited time on this Earth, but it can at least help to remove the barriers that would normally prevent communication. These days anyone with a net
connection can get in touch with anyone with a net connection; an English shop assistant can chat with a Persian goat herder or Las Vegas call girl as easily as he can his next door neighbour. The internet isn’t a physical place, like a town or a nightclub, it’s an entire different plane of existence that we can digitally project ourselves into from anywhere, created by the joining together of millions of computers all around the real world. It destroys the reality of separation with the same profound ease as the illusion of space.
MySpace is an example of electronically enhanced human connection, a rather poor one but it’s still quite awe-inspiring. It’s a site designed to put and keep people in touch with each other, for dating, friendship, collaboration and any other reason one person might want to meet another, it seems particularly popular with bands.
Sites like this can be good for starting relationships, or for meeting new people if you’re kind of shy and maybe find it hard to approach strangers, or are just
finding your feet in a new town. I met my first girlfriend on Faceparty and we had a lot of good times together before things finally went wrong, and even now we’ve broken up neither of us has ever forced entry into the other’s house to sniff at shoes or soiled underwear (as far as she knows). There are some real creeps online, but there are a whole lot of sweethearts out there as well.
You don’t get to meet many people, it’s worth putting a little time in to up the odds of your finding the right ones.