Yuku free message boards

This little ditty was written sometime ago and I thought this was perfect time to share considering what has happened in the past week.


Have you ever wondered what we're doing on here? Is this a place to just unwind… throw an occasional comment… confabulate the minor details of our lives and move on to the next friend on the list?


I think it's much more.


Although many of the young posters were born into this technological way of life … when I was a kid the very thought of the internet would have been absolutely unthinkable . In the 60's... 70's… 80's… and even 90's, friendships were only developed with the kids you met in school… down the street…. at the park. You could see them, feel them…..smell them… and LOL with them face to face. If we told a lie… the other would soon find out… if we jazzed up our character…..our living situation… our possessions…. our accomplishments… it would quickly be exposed as embellishment…and we'd move on. By the process of elimination, we would gather only a small number of true friends. These were the kids that we shared our lives with…our hopes and dreams… our happiness… our let downs…our winnings…our losses….we were united…. through thick and thin.

And then came the losses….remember how it felt when your best friend moved away?...... when she got a boyfriend…..when she met someone she liked better than you?...remember how it felt to lose that connection you held so dear?


In adulthood, relationships continued to be build in much the same way as they did when we were kids.


Today we have more options. We can connect to people who we would otherwise have never had the opportunity to cross paths with. Thank you, Internet, Ezboard & Yuku


While just as powerful, if not more so in some cases, this internet mode of communication is clearly different than the face to face exchange. I can't see you… can't physically feel you… hell, I don't even know if you smell like a rose or a bowl of cooked cabbage…but by the process of elimination, we've connected and you're my friend. I care about you.


On the Internet (Ezboard/Yuku) ….we develop our friendships on gut, respect for one another no matter what their beliefs…on instinct… eyes closed, hearts open. Just like in real life, we can't always readily distinguish the truths from the embellishments… the exaggerations… the sometimes deliberate deceptions…but when we do (and we almost always do)……we move on.....and it hurts….it hurts every bit as much as it hurt when we realized that little Mary Ann came to our house just because we had PacMan, Donkey Kong, or Mario Bros latest game… or when we found out that everything Suzie told us in 3rd grade was a bold face lie….or when our mate cheated on us.


Does the mode of human connection really affect the way in which loss is perceived?

Is it really less of an emotional burn to discover that the person on the other end of the comment is not who he/ she presented? Is it any less shocking when one of our top friends suddenly deletes his/her profile with out so much as a word?… does it make it any less hurtful when we discover our Internet girlfriend is really 25 years older than she said?….or looks more like a dumpling than an hourglass? Does it make it any less painful when one of our poster friends passes away? No, no, no, no and absolutely not.


For me and for many, the Internet is a powerful, very real communication connection… not a card collection of heartless, emotionless, photo-shopped faces. As in real time just like when we were kids….and just like our real in person lives today.



Some of the people on our friend's list are acquaintances… some are a bit closer to our hearts and others are deeply embedded. On Ezboard/Yuku, our actions towards one another have the power to profoundly effect each other, emotionally spiritually and physically. In this vein, I believe that we all have a responsibility to honor and respect the treasures of friendship, just as we would face to face.