By: Taban Khajehnassiri
Ask yourself what kind of friendship do you want to reach online or offline, be alert, clear and a true friend to yourself and to the world, then send out your message and profile on the net: "I need a friend!".
And I have a list. A list of names, names of my family members, friends and relatives. A list of my true friends, even a list of my clients who are really among my friends. And I have a dream. A dear dream of peace, a dream of friendship, a dream of harmony, a dream of compassion, a dream of success, a dream of health, a dream of wealth, a dream of God, my Lord, meeting Him someday. Yes I have a dream. A dream of millions of millions of families and friends throughout this world. It is sweet, I mean, my dream - to have a list of millions of millions of friends from all over the world. It is not yet impossible, it is true and also achievable, I believe when Tom, Barrett, Joan or Julie send me an e-mail to just say: " Hi, we are your friends, we are far from you but, somehow close to you, by this real media we have now under our finger tips." Yes, believe me, it is not impossinle, someday, we can all have millions of millions of friends throughout the world by using this very world wide media. They will send us voice messages :"We are far from each other, but, we are somehow so close, we are friends, forever friends, online or offline." Oh my God ... I need to rest now ... What's happening to this world of computers and communications. I have to check out my database first now, who is Tom, who is Barrett, who is Joan or Julie? Is that Barrett who is now in France? Oh ... I can not recall, not now. I know them somehow, they sound friends, they sound familiar, but I cannot remember them very well. I do understand, they are all my friends, I know. The surprise, last year, was that I had about 900,000 friends online, and this year, I see, I have about two millions, how come? I don't know ... It is still not clear ... First, I needed a friend, then I just asked for more friends, more friendships and suddenly I found myself received, I got millions of millions e-mails from people of the world, all fed up with this killing loneliness, they were looking for a friend who was really in need of a true friend, wandering from this chatroom to that chatroom, and one day they found my site somewhere on the web. Just, ten days after that, Matthew sent me an e-mail: " I am from South Africa, this is not my real name but I just want to make friends with you, do you have time to just listen to my story?" - I answered back : " I need someone who is available to sit and listen to my own story, but no problem, I listen first, tell me yours." After some months, we became friends, I added him to my database, as my first net friend and he added me to his own, I thought. I turned to my notebook I wrote in one of my articles: "we all need freinds, peace, company, and we all need compassion."
Where do we go from here? I don't know ... Where does the web go from this phase? Again I don't have a clue. Where do our friends do and go on the web? Mmmm, they write to me from time to time: "We meet each other on chatrooms, we talk and talk, we listen and listen to stories we may want others to know, we play songs for each other, we learn things to do, and we teach each other and show the right path (a URL) to a given website for the required material or information."
How do we feel deep inside? How does the web feel when we are online? it surely feels heavy and busy? How do our friends feel when we communicate online or offline? They feel good, they feel great. Oh my God ... This is just the era of electronic means and media. When I am online, I need a good hug, I am still a good child, I need a soft singing lullaby, I need a rocking as a way to get comfort, I need a deep sleep. How can I be with these millions of millions of friends online. I do not want to lose them, I miss them all - and this is why I have to sit up all night long to write these e-mails to my loved ones, my friends. Jack, Cole, Mary, Ester are just now paging and sending me instant messages from my Hotmail account. Jens, Rolf, Stephan, Phil, Susan, Meg and Michael are inviting me to Yahoo, Let me see, I have 1798 unread e-mail messages in only one of my POP3 e-mail accounts for the past couple of days. How can I find time to sit and write them replies.
"Friends will be friends", I sing to myself. I do not want to give it up soon. That is, literally, cold comfort and it sounds that I can not handle all of them right at once. Ron in the Netherlands is sending me a Fax: "Do you call it a friendship? Why didn't you send me that book we talked about on the chat on and about your country? Do you call yourself a friend of mine? Forget it man ... I just don't care ... " - I do and I still do die for a true friend and it is not impossible, I know. This scenario needed a good author, maybe. I found and lost many of my online friends over night because of too much expectations. At this stage, in the course of living our lives, we simply spend a lot of our time wanting, expecting and complaining about our troubled life, work, friendships and relationships. To escape we may feel we need to have a true friend to turn to and talk to, the first expectations start when you ask for his/her attention and listening, then you expect him/her to understand you. Growth takes a lot of time, however, building and maintaining a true friendship takes a life time, and this is why I believe it is not impossible to enjoy a life time friendship with even millions of millions of people from around the world. Online friendship is not about sending jokes and greeting cards from time to time to friends, it is not about calling back phone or fax messages instantly. It is about understanding the situations, not pushing but paying attention. It is all about being and staying positive in attitudes, thoughts and deeds, it is about taking actions when needed at the right time and the right place. Ask yourself what kind of friendship do you want to reach online or offline, be alert, clear and a true friend to yourself and to the world, then send out your message and profile on the net: "I need a friend!".
It is late at night, within only 15 minutes of my escape to write this article, I received hundreds of messages: "In reply to your request for a friend, I would like to be one of your friends, OK! I send you a photo, OK, it is in BMP format, OK, sorry for the huge size of the file, OK, we took this with friends when we were in Japan last year, OK. I am the third person from right, OK, hey ... would you please do me a favor, OK, cut around my head, OK, and send it as a new photo in a smaller size, OK, to the following e-mail accounts, OK, they are all now OUR friends in Japan, OK. You know, I don't have time right now, OK, I am really busy these days with ...OK?"
Huh... he is calling himself a friend. OK!!! Some may want his HEAD on a plate, CUT :) ... By Taban Khadjeh Nassiri - President.