Friendship redefined through long-distance difficulties
Six days before Concordia College alumnus Mads Schmidt Christensen boards a plane headed home to Denmark, he sits alone on his bed struggling to answer questions about the not-so-distant future. I feel like a curious and relatively naïve child sitting at his feet, searching for answers of my own, and looking to a man who has, as of late, become increasingly short on sureness or certainty concerning the days, weeks and months to come.
“What are you going to do with all of your stuff?” I ask in an attempt to recapture his apparently preoccupied mind.
No answer.
“Why exactly don’t you just stay here until the end of the semester?” I continue, unphased by the lack of response to my first inquiry.
The questions continue to spill from my mouth, as I can’t help but wonder what his life will look like apart from the community he spent nearly three years immersed in. More specifically, I’m interested in how he plans on approaching a relationship with his girlfriend, Concordia junior Laura Frazier. Three unanswered questions later, I decide to take it up with the woman herself.
Without leaving my chair, I swivel 90 degrees to face the desk and the laptop awaiting my fingers’ next visit to its keys. Username, Password, Login, Begin. I swiftly open a Facebook chat window and as luck would have it, Ms. Laura Frazier is available for conversation via the chat feature of what has become one of the world’s most frequented Internet social networking tools.
Two clicks and a few seconds of keypunching, and I’m off.
---
Hey Frazier what are you up to right now?
4:44pm Laura
just got back from bbbs... about to come over probably!
4:44pm Kyle
nice
first though...
4:44pm Laura
yes?
4:44pm Kyle
you should answer a few questions via facebook chat...I’m writing a story about social networking.
ready?
4:45pm Laura
haha k
4:45pm Kyle
now that you are going to be involved in a “long distance relationship”, how do you think you will use facebook, skype, and other social networking tools to maintain your relationship?
4:48pm Laura
How? Well in multiple ways. It will make it easier to share pictures, email, and just quick ‘chat sessions’. And skype will be nice if I want to have an actual phone conversation!
4:50pm Laura is offline.
4:51pm Kyle
(Laura is no longer online. The following was not sent):
gotcha...so do you think this will be a positive for the both of you, or will it make things more difficult trying to stay connected via the internet rather more personal means. Can you see yourself limiting how often you “check up” on Mads? (sent as a message)
4:51pm Laura is online.
4:52pm Laura
plus with skype, if you have a camera on/in your computer, you can see the person on the other line-its the next best thing to actually being with them!!
4:54pm Kyle
(Laura is no longer online.)
how much time do you spend on facebook already?
(sent as a message)
4:54pm Laura is online.
4:54pm Laura
sorry my computer’s being weird
4:55pmKyle
(Laura is no longer online. The following was not sent):
no worries
(sent as a message)
4:56pm Kyle is offline.
---
Our conversation cut short by technical difficulties and a resulting loss of patience, Frazier and I exit the Facebook chat scene for the time being and agree to continue the chat when we are face-to-face, literally speaking that is.
Albeit a quick and relatively simple means of communication, it may not be best suited for heavier conversations (as in my conversation with Frazier). And even as I was slightly frustrated with the small glitches in the system during our chat, I felt surprisingly uncomfortable approaching such a sore subject via an Internet chat program. So when the chat was terminated, more than annoyance, I felt relief.
---
Despite two failed attempts to elicit answers from two separate sources, I understand now, if only slightly, what sort of difficulties Schmidt Christensen will encounter once overseas. If I was unable to successfully connect with Frazier via virtual means for more than five minutes, how can one expect to maintain a romantic relationship by way of the same sorts of lines of communication?
It seems many modern relationships are now dictated by bandwidth, cords, cables and server capacities. The value of a letter and the significance of eye contact (in the flesh), lack the strength they once carried. Unsettling as it may sound, the detriment of such impersonal relational ties may soon be reflected in the bond between Schmidt Christensen and Frazier. Status updates, photo comments and Skype dates may not be enough to water a once flourishing seed, while it seems plenty to drown a now dying breed.
