Calling Out Sick

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend and enjoyed the time off if you got it. 

Another submitted story, this one about being blown off. We've all been in the situation where we haven't wanted to go out with someone we committed to and have made up an excuse to get out of it. This story proves why lying really may not be the best of ideas unless everyone is in on it.

On a hot summer day in New York City, Jack and Michelle decided to spend their respective June days in Washington Square Park. The temperature was nearing 90 with unbearable humidity that Jack took off his shirt to bask in the sun. Moments later, Michelle, clad in her bathing suit to do the same, sat down only feet away from Jack. 

After eyeing each other for several minutes, Jack decided to strike up a conversation with Michelle. After the two got talking they realized that they had many mutual friends from NYU but had never met each other. 

They talked for hours  about sports, movies, books and where they wanted to go in life with their careers. The sun was beginning to set and they parted ways, but not before exchanging numbers.

A couple of days later, (wanting to abide by the 3-day-rule), Jack called Michelle and asked her out on a date to dinner. Michelle excitedly replied with a Yes, and the two were set to have a dinner date. 

The morning of the date Jack got an unpleasant text. It read "Hey Jack, I'm not going to be able to make dinner tonight, I'm not feeling very well." Jack being the gentlemen responded by telling Michelle he wished her well and when she felt better they would go out again.

That night, now dateless, Jack returned home from work and logged onto Facebook. He read the status of his friend Lauren, who was also friends with Michelle, and was shocked to read what it said. "Getting ice cream and then seeing a movie with Michelle tonight, so excited!!"

Jack then knew he had been bailed on. But he was not going to let this go unnoticed. Jack then posted his own status letting the world know what exactly Michelle had done, and for those few hours of immaturity that Jack left his post up, Michelle's reputation may have been tarnished, or only Jack's may have been for his lack of maturity and understanding.

 

- I have to empathize with Jack a little bit because that is not really the way you want to find out that you are being lied to but he did also go a little overboard with his decision making to call Michelle out via his Facebook status. So maybe Michelle knew something about Jack that we may not, and she made the right decision in the first place. A word of advice to Michelle on this one, if you are going to make new plans after blowing someone off, make sure to let everyone your new plans are with in on the situation so they don't throw you under the bus unintentionally. 

Until tomorrow...Glen

The Tale of Two Girls

This next story is a happier story, it is one about love and the ability to reconnect with those who we once may have forgotten about after our first meeting.   

If it weren't for Facebook, Mark would probably still think that Rachel was two different girls. Rachel, who was studying journalism at ASU, sat down in her Media Ethics class across from Mark, a double major studying film and journalism. Mark attempted to make small talk, but was thwarted by Rachel's shyness. 

Assuming all hope was lost when Rachel chose to sit at a different table during the next class (when in actuality someone had just taken her seat), he went on with his lonely existence. 

Recognizing him from school, Rachel was surprised to find out that Mark was also a personal trainer at her gym. She waved hello, and he seemed dumbfounded as to who exactly she was. 

Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, Mark was finally able to link these seemingly two different girls as one person.

He cleverly devised a plan to lure her in by giving her a free personal training session. She has never paid for one since. They are now getting married later this year.

 - Hope everyone enjoyed and have a great holiday weekend celebrating, dead presidents?? Oh well either way live it up

Glen

Sad Year...New Revelations

There have been many rumors that Facebook will be deleting the profiles of individuals who have been inactive for some time. The first story to be posted here will be one of my own and will certainly be a reason why social networking sites should never take down the pages of their users without the consent from this person.

On October 21 of 2007, I was living in New York after graduating from Arizona State University and enjoying, not so much, the real world for the first time, i.e. paying bills, working full time and not having anymore fun. Then I received a text message the next morning at around 7 a.m. from one of my best friends with something that no one should ever have to read written on it. In plain site, with no explanation or warning two words popped up. "Seth Died". Seth being one of my closest friends from ASU. I immediately was shocked and didn't believe what I had read. Unfortunately for me and everyone who knew Seth, this was an ultimate low blow and my heart sank when we knew it was true. Seth had died in a car accident the night before while celebrating with some friends, while on his Marine base.

Not even a year later I was packing up and getting ready to make my move from New York to Los Angeles when I received another phone call.  It was a call I'll never forget. I was awoken by my friend Brian's voice as he told me our childhood friend Bob had passed away. Again I didn't know how to react only to surround myself with those that were close to me. 

The thing in both circumstances that I hadn't seen until some weeks later was that these events didn't effect only me, there were plenty of people that both of my friends had cared for whom I had never met, family, friends from home and college and even strangers. In an effort to keep the good name of both Seth and Bob, Facebook memorial pages were set up, and people flooded these walls to contribute amazing stories and memories of these individuals. To this day people will write on Seth and Bob's Facebook pages to tell them how much they are missed and just to wish them well or write a funny memory to keep their spirits alive. Their pages acting almost as an interactive gravesite. It has been a way for me to connect with those who knew each of them but I may never have gotten the chance to meet otherwise, who I now consider lifelong friends. 

This was only two examples of when this has been done, and I know that their are thousands of people who use social networking sites for this reason and would hate to not have this medium to connect with those who have passed on. Even the inactive profiles may serve a purpose.

- Glen

The Introduction

In 1997 the creators of sixdegrees.com started a phenomenon that maybe even they didn't know would blow up. 2002 Friendster becomes one of the most recognizable social networking sites on the internet. A year later in 2003 people began receiving friend requests from a man named "Tom" on a then unknown site called Myspace, and now in 2009 the 5-year-old site Facebook has generated more than  150,000,000 individual users. 

All of these social networking sites set out to do one thing or another, but mainly to bring people from across the country and even world together, and it looks as if some have succeeded. 

With hundreds and hundreds of social networking sites on the internet in almost every country, people are becoming connected in a way never seen before. This can be a good or a bad thing depending on how we look at it.  I myself belong to a couple of social networking sites (Facebook and Myspace) for the sole purpose of connecting with those from my past and even some new friends, but also to make sure everyone knows what I'm doing at every waking moment of my day, that's the point right?

The purpose of this blog is to explore what you have gotten out of your social networking experience. There are many stories of success, love and building relationships as well as those about cheating, dishonesty, and disorganization. This blog is an interactive one and I will be posting stories from you the reader, as well as some of my own, whether they be good, bad, funny, displeasing and sometimes gross. Then, those stories that seem fitting will be added to the book I have been working on for some time now. So please if you have something you'd like to share e-mail SNHstories@gmail.com and check back regularly to hear what exactly has been going on in our social networking world.

- Glen