Making Friends Online

When I first went into Gerard's room, he was just waking up; he wore his clothes to bed in a haste to get to work. It was 5 a.m. He works with mentally or physically challenged children. When I first started talking to him it felt like shooting blanks--no instant reply. He was busy wearing his socks--I believe they were Hanes.

Later, when he showed me his photo album I noticed he had a tattoo on his forearm; it was something that had two wings. It went pretty fine with his Harley-Davidson biker look. Incidentally, he did own a Harley bike. All of this reminded me of the photos Mohammed showed me of his house in Australia. They both have the same style in clothing.

Later I went into a rather depressive mood, and one day it was more than the usual afternoon blues. That afternoon my friend Charles and I had a rather uplifting discussion. Being sixty and having had a rather staggering career as an international marketing consultant, he knew exactly what things to say. That same night, May and myself also talked in a rather lengthy way, and I suppose by the end of the day I was feeling much better.

The above details are true, but some are not real. Two of the four characters are persons I have never met before. Gerard? Mohammed? Charles? May?

Actually, a more accurate version of the above events is this: Gerard's webcam was on when I caught a glimpse of him in the morning and he e-mailed me back later in the day. His photo album is posted on his web page. Mohammed showed me his photos of Australia over lunch at his place, and indeed they really resembled those of Gerard. Due to the time difference present between Portland, Oregon and Beirut, afternoon here is early morning there, and so I managed to catch Charles before he went to the office and he gave me all those wonderful advices by e-mail. May lives just a few minutes away from my house, yet that particular conversation happened over the telephone and e-mail.

Does the distinction matter? Is it important if I ever had one of those almond frappucinos that Steven really likes with him, or not? Steven also belongs to that category of people who I have never met. And even if we did meet, we'll never have almond frappucinos together: I never drink coffee.

When do people become real? Is Tony who lives in Corfu real? Was I real to him before I sent him all those tourist brochures on Lebanon? Was I real to Gerard before he was aware that I was there visiting his webcam? Does the tree that falls in the forest when no one is there makes a noise?

Are "smiley45" or "funloving23" your friends, or are they what is technically referred to as "bit streams"? Some might suggest that people one talks to virtually are nothing but an interactive "dear diary," and that "virtual" relations are just that--virtual. "Not the real thing," as someone once told me. They might try to have a Coca-cola instead; it might be the closest thing they'll have to a real thing.

Webster's pocket dictionary defines a "friend" as "someone a person has a confidence in or a liking for." If you confide into smiley45 or have a liking for him or her, then why shouldn't he or she be your friend?

In the seventies, the Lennons (John and Yoko) initiated a movement called bagism, whereby people would wear bags all over to hide any color or sexual traits so that other people would not discriminate against them on that basis. Do you care if smiley45 is a male or a female? If he or she is black, yellow or fuchsia? "The possibilities are endless," would have said Jack from Three's Company, even if in a totally different context.

Some might insinuate that the friendship built over the net lacks the commitment that real life friendships are supposed to have. But none of us is sure if his friend will pick up the phone tomorrow if we call; guarantees are only concepts in our mind. We all know people we are currently trying to avoid, even though we know their telephone numbers and addresses. Probably these people also thought we had committment in the relation we had with them.

In Ridley Scott's film Blade Runner, many questions about what defines humans, what makes people "real," are asked. One of the characters even says, "I have friends--I 'make' them," referring to the robots which he has created and befriended. Although at first sight his attitude is risible, we all can remember friends whom we only befriended to influence, or coerce even if mostly we acted unconsciously.

I recently discovered that one of Lebanon's top journalists was writing under the pseudonym of Tarek Chemaly in 1989 because he was not allowed to write for two papers simultaneously. It was some four years before I started my own writing in 1993. But says who? I can always claim that his articles on social reform were mine.

"Je est un autre"--"I is another," said French poet Arthur Rimbaud. We all are.