reasons you should never write for a class when you're emotional:

Simplify, Simplify reflection paper
Annie Dillard -- weasels emulation

The day before I embarked on my four day adventure, I updated my twitter encouraging people to call me. The whole purpose was to get to know people a little better. A lot of my friends I communicate solely through skype and twitter, so it was going to be hard not talking to them for four days. But two days in, I hadn't gotten any phone calls. I wasn't bothered -- I have a life, other people have lives, but I was a bit disappointed. I got a few text messages, just saying "what's up?" and "how are you?" but those didn't mean too much.

Then after school, on the third day, almost immediately after I walked out of the building, my phone started ringing. I was expecting my mother, telling me to hurry to the car, or my brother, saying that he wasn't coming home and was headed to the pool, but it wasn't. It was my friend, Arka. He lives in Webb City, Missouri, about a two hour drive from here, and just called to honestly ask me how I was. I could not have been more pleased. Sure, I could barely hear him as I crossed 75th street on the way home, and I couldn't talk to him for more than five minutes, but just the fact that he made the effort to contact me, where so many others hadn't, made me feel good.

My experiment seems a bit selfish -- it was more of a find-who-likes-me-the-most game. I don't feel that the people who didn't call me are any lesser friends, who like me less than Arka, who called. But he did win some friend-points. Maybe it was a little self-indulgent, a little narcissistic of me to assume that people would love to call me and chat with me outside of this internet realm. I probably would have caved and jumped on twitter once I got home had I not gotten that phone call. I really missed them, my internet friends, these people who I have never seen and probably never will see, in person, face-to-face. But I can say that they have affected me more than anyone else in this school, more than the girl who sits in front of me in chemistry who tells me about the parties she's been to and how drunk and high she was the other night. They know me, I know them, and I'm proud to call them my friends.

6 Response to "reasons you should never write for a class when you're emotional:"

  1. Esther says:

    Katy, I love you, and I'm so glad that we've been talking more recently. You're an amazing person and you mean a lot to me and <3

    Arka says:

    bah Katy you're amazing and I love you and blah blah, you know.

    I love the internet and I really love how awesome its inhabitants are, but sometimes I worry that it kind of makes relationships all weird and confusing. I mean, it's like "Oh hi internet friends let's talk about crap and be nerdy yay yay yay omg a video oh look twitter okay IRL now bye." I supposed it's what you get with this limited experience of other people, but I guess sometimes online we forget that other people have so much more depth to them that we can't always see and that sometimes we need to interact with them more and now I'm just ranting, look!

    Also, not being there makes other people's lives seem much more busy and it hard to tell when people want to talk to you :\

    Whatever, I'm sure John Green would explain it much better in a book :P

    gaaah DFTB fricking A!

    Anonymous says:

    Aww, Katy, it is not selfish at all of you to have done that. I wish I would've seen your tweets asking for a phone call >_< I don't really read old tweets, I just read what is relatively recent and @replies, maybe I should start reading old ones too ...

    I am so glad to have met you, siriusly, you mean so much to me, you have no idea. I really wish that we hadn't stopped talking like a year ago when I spoke with you on MSN messenger (you remember that right?). I am happy to have sort "re-met" you recently and gotten a chance to talk to you so often and to get to know you better. You're more then just an "internet friend" to me, even if we've never met, I consider you one of my close friends and I hope that our friendships lasts long enough for us to meet in real life. I am really looking forward to that day, and don't think I wouldn't hop on a plane and go see you as soon as I could if I had the money, because it would be totally worth it. I guess sometimes I don't fully show how I feel about people, but I hope this half-explained what I think about you, Katy. You're amazing, you're adorable, and you're absolutely made of awesome.

    <∞
    -Julian

    Lindsay says:

    Ahhh Katy I really wanted to call you when you did that, actually, but I didn't know you all that well at the time and I didn't know what you would think. I basically got in my own way of letting someone know they were missed and being thought of, which I do a lot. I really dislike that about myself, but I'm working on it.

    I'm so glad we met and are getting to know each other better. You're so freaking awesome. Love you. <3

    I called you. and i probably would have done it better if I werent so new to calling people i met on the internet. I always feel like i shouldnt call people for no reason cuz most of the time neither person really has anything to say.

    but yea, i definitely agree that you can find more friendship online than people at school.

    Anonymous says:

    I called you three times. All three times it rang and rang and went to voicemail. Sorry.

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