So this has been bugging me...

While I was piddling around on facespace, writing some useless post about how awesome the show "Doug" was, I noticed on a sidebar two advertisements:
"Want to meet cute girls?"
and
"Get a cougar tonight!"

I'm sure we've all run into these things at one point or another in our internet surfing lives, we've all seen commercials for match.com and eharmony, even beer commercials have begun making parodies of eharmony's commercials. So being the high and mighty and self-righteous bastard I am, I scoffed at the ad and continued my facespacing adventure. I mean who would be so pathetic that they could walk up to the girl they like and say "hi" right? I use "girl" only because it seems to be set in stone that a guy has to do all the approaching, move making, etc...and that we're supposed to be able to tell from a passing glance, a certain giggle, or from some minor movement of a hand. Which is fine, until she starts bitching that "he doesn't like me/want to talk to me" from a guy not taking advantage of that cute little pretend "oh our eyes just met haha *blush blush*" When half the time I just think we're unsure of ourselves(on both parties) and don't know what to say in fear of looking like an ass in front of the person that's caught our eye...

But I'm going off on a tangent. So I'm facespacing laughing at how people actually fall for these dating sites and assume they're going to find true love, based on a picture, or a test or interests. How can we have become so disconnected as a society that we can't have a physical and personal interaction anymore, that it all has to be based doing it while hiding behind a screen. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and this IS the way of the future, but where's the fun in all of that? While I think most people are liars and especially on the first few dates will say anything to make you happy with them and want them, and I know that's an unfair judgement to pass but I have a strong reasoning behind it. But behind the safety of your monitor, you can say whatever you want "Yeah I can bench press 6800 pounds and I threw a knock out punch at a Kodiak bear while I was on a secret mission for the government in Alaska hunting for Russian elk spies...did I mention I LOVE Grey's anatomy!"

While all that is false and a very exaggerated statement, it's still similar to something you could pull off and gain a few believers with when none of them have ever met you. So this is all swimming through my head, when I suddenly couldn't find my phone and the realization that I could have missed some text messages, or *gasp* even a phone call sent me on a quest to discover where I left it. That's when I realized how much of a hypocrite I'm being. I walk around campus all day with my cell phone in my hand, texting away, sometimes to people I haven't even seen in two or three years keeping up with their lives, when I have thousands upon thousands of people on campus that I could talk to everyday.

I didn't receive unlimited texting on my phone until about two years ago when I was getting of tired of people texting me and me having to pay for it, when I could just spend 5 bucks extra a month to not worry about my phone bill crushing me. In that period, I went from being anti-text to super mega text. For example, looking at my last phone bill I have 7069 outbound and 11259 inbound text messages. For fucking February! That means I sent out 10 an hour for the month. The problem became more substantialized when I began thinking about how many people I know in my classes and how many I talk to or hang out with on a regular basis. And I realized how bad it is.

In my math class, I have a few people that ask me for help during class, but I don't know their names nor do I ever want to hang out with them, three of them were in one of my math classes last semester as well...still don't know their names.

In my Astronomy class, I talk to one person that's also in my English class, and the professor. So we're at two people I stay in contact with out of two classes.

In my history class, there's a girl I used to work with and one other dude that I talk to on occasion but don't hang out with. So we're at three people that I actually talk to.

My English class, is a talking class though, so I've met a lot of these people, and hung out with a couple of them outside of class once or twice, but again I don't really know any of them, I like them but I wouldn't say they're friends exactly.

So that's pretty pathetic when you think about it. Out of a thousand and some people in all of my classes this semester, two people have my phone number, and I've only hung out with maybe 4 or 5 of them, yet my text messages are still ridiculously high.

I also, don't really talk to anybody on campus, I walk out the front door of my house, make a beeline to my classroom then scurry back to my house doing my best not to make eye contact with anybody. I usually do this by, pretending I'm reading something on my phone, to avoid the eye contact and the often inviting smiles thrown my way. I have no idea why though. While my section of the English class would probably have a hard time believing it and call me a liar or say I'm full of shit, but I've become horribly horribly shy over the past couple of years. I'm not behind the safety net of my cell phone, or facespace out here. I have to deal with real people and real emotions. While it's easier than judging from a 3 word sentence ending in :-/ what they're thinking, especially since I consider myself to be extremely empathetic, I'm still horrible unsure of what to do or say, though I seem to rarely be disliked or unsociable once I get going.

It goes back to what I was laughing at with the dating sites, I don't know what to say to people, if you give me an opening I end up stalling out from adrenaline and just stand there completely silent. Several times a week I get put into situations where a girl I find interesting is standing next to me or sitting by me or making the "say hi!" eyes at me while passing in a hallway, and while I have tons of things to say, none of them seem to come out, it turns into a look straight ahead and pretend like you don't notice. And of course there's very negative ramifications to all of this since it makes me look like an arrogant ass and does nothing for me in an attempt to meet people that actually interest me. Is it that empathy thing kicking in? I have an adrenaline rush, i pick up on their adrenaline rush and in turn it overpowers my mind from anything witty/cute/funny thing I have flashing through my head?

And after observing other people at school, work, and just out, I notice that a lot of people do this. They're focused on their cell phones, my history class is so loud that from the back of the room it can be hard to hear the professor of the "clack clack clack" of texting, even though there's a perfectly good person sitting right next to them that they could whisper their thoughts into. Or even going back to me, I'm posting this on a random blog site to be viewed publicly by strangers that will most likely never meet me, minus the 15 people in my class and Adam, yet I haven't talked to any of my roommates or any of my friends about this. It just all seems so odd to me...

So tomorrow I may just leave my phone at home and make it a goal to ask five people to hang out over spring break, and say "Hello" to five people I've never met and continue with a conversation with them. I don't want this to become a norm for our society and especially me....goddamn facespace making me think too hard and realize how stupid I am sometimes.

/end bitch and moan