SubscribeBeing twenty six (almost 27), it struck me that I have literally five friends, excluding my sister and wife. In high school, I wouldn’t say I was a recluse, but I didn’t have many close friends. Many of the people I associated with where just acquaintances that I lost touch with after graduating. I’ve realized over the years that those types of friends are fine, they fill a void when you’re stuck someplace you don’t want to be. It could be just the way I look at friendship, but whatever, I’m getting off track.
In high school I met someone that’s pretty much a brother to me, and he’s remained my best friend since the first day I met him. I also met my wife in high school, so those two connections have worked out great for me. Knowing Josh for the last twelve years has been great, and being with Dorena for ten years has been amazing. I can’t complain about those two at all.
I was lucky enough to get a job working with Josh at Walmart back in 2002. During my orientation I met my other friend, Drewf (he signed my sister’s crutch with ‘Drew’ but it had this weird tail on it that looked like an f, hence Drewf). We hit it off and we’ve got so much in common that sometimes it feels as though we were separated at birth. It’s not just our interests, but quirky little things that we both do without knowing the other one does it too.
So let’s see, there’s Josh, Drewf and both of their significant others. That’s four people. Doing some elaborate math, I’m left with two friends to introduce. Billy and Will. I ‘met’ Billy back in the early months of 2006. I was recently signed up as a contractor for IPS, and Billy was employed as a tech support guy. We hit it off and he’s been one of my closest hombres since. :D We’ve only met in person once, when he came up for my wedding last May, but if we could arrange more swing by visits I would certainly not object.
Will, on the other hand, was nothing but a contentious asshole when I first met him. He’s my brother-in-law’s best friend, so as all little siblings do, they just tried their hardest to get under my skin every time they were around me. As we all grew older we started to get along, and Will and I hit it off. We can sit and gab on AIM or over the phone for hours about nothing at all. We got so close that he was my second best man at my wedding.
Don’t get me wrong, I love everyone I’ve outlined here. My life would fucking blow without any one of them in it. Throw in my amazing wifey and my Punk, what I call Kristen, my sister – I’m her bro-bro – and my life is full of amazing people. Still, there are times where there’s a desire to have connections with new people, but Dorena and I don’t drink so we’re not just going to go to some random bar and try to pick up friends. Besides, that’s just creepy. "Hey there. You here with any friends? Wanna make some?" Get. The. Fuck. Out.
That’s where Twitter comes in. I hear it all the time, you know, that stupid argument about people only using Facebook and Twitter because they’re shut-ins, and they don’t want to meet new people in person. It’s just not true. I’d love to meet new people, but how do you break the ice and make new friends randomly? It’s extremely difficult. You don’t want to invest time and learn that they’re fucking douche bags, and then wind up with some annoying shadow that won’t leave you the hell alone. Twitter is an excellent conduit to meeting new people that are in your area and share some common interests. Through this medium I’ve reconnected with old friends and met many anew.
I’ve known @john_jordan for a very long time. Probably goes back to sixth grade. We were friends through ninth grade, then I moved from Watervliet back to Troy, and pretty much lost touch with everyone I knew. Back in 1998 we didn’t have Twitter and Facebook to make it easy to stay in touch. You youngin’s and yer tek-nawl-ah-gee. We reconnected briefly in 2001 after we both graduated and wound up at Hudson Valley at the same time, but it wasn’t until this Twitter boom that we really hit it off again. It’s so easy to facilitate contact now; hell Twitter looks through your email contacts and adds people for you. So simple. He talked me into going to a Tweetup, where people from Twitter get together in person. Sounds nerdy as all fuck, and for the most part it can be, but I’ve made some amazing friends.
I could go into specifics on everyone, even in a little blurb like Mike did over at his blog, but I’m just going to keep it Twitter fashion and do a #FF style shout out to all my new homies. There’s others, but these are the usernames I know off the top of my head…
http://twitter.com/john_jordan
http://twitter.com/Dozenroses13
http://twitter.com/AlbanyKelly
http://twitter.com/remarceissac
Honorable Mentions, not Tweeps met through Tweetups.
http://twitter.com/MetalFrog <—That’s me
http://twitter.com/kshanahanx <—Punk
http://twitter.com/tehbilly <—Billy, durr.
So this quick little post that was going to showcase my Tweeps and new homies has evolved into a long ass post and taken up a lot of time. I’m posting and leaving my blog alone for a while. aha.
Reply
We may be nerdy (well Michael is, me I was a band geek) but we try to have fun!! :)