Who are your peeps?

Since the internet has become commonplace, have you noticed how much smaller the world seems? People from your past can find you with a few mouse clicks and people you've never met before send you messages that sound like you are great friends. It's weird. People are "friends" with many people they've never even met and it seems quite acceptable to skip over the 'getting to know you' part of a friendship and move directly to the personal, private and intimate details about our lives.

I relented this weekend and allowed my boys to have their own email accounts. I still, however, draw the line at any 'social network' sites. If you want to talk to a friend, pick up the phone and invite them over. I am apparently in the minority of parents out there. I do not understand, I am told regularly. When I hear about so and so having "267 friends", I cringe. These are NOT friends, I tell my boys, these are mouse click acquaintances at best.

We need real people in our lives - peeps, as one friend calls them. Real live people to talk with, laugh with, cry with (I've heard peeps do this!), yell at, shop with, eat with, pray with, work with, play with. People who have your back in a time of need. Is a mouse click acquaintance really going to come running when your car breaks down or you get stuck in traffic and need your kid picked up? Or worse, when your husband leaves or you find out you have cancer?

When one of my kids said he wanted to start "collecting" friends, we had a long, eye rolling, conversation. Try making a friend.

If we're not careful, in 20 years, the art of conversation will be obsolete and our world will be silent except for the clicking of a mouse and a keyboard.