Today's post is not as much about food I've created as about how food brings people together. After spending the afternoon doing a little exercise and searching the job market I was off out to dinner. Going out for dinner is perhaps my most favourite thing to do. I love exploring new restaurants or going to friend's houses for supper because I believe that it brings us closer together. We can relax and laugh and offer advice and support all while enjoying one of life's biggest comforts - food. It's an incredibly social activity and a great way to catch up with someone you might not have seen for a while.
So, I made my way south of the river to C's house. I've known C for around 10 years now after we met at university. Many a lecture was spent helplessly laughing rather than concentrating on what was actually being taught. Good times. C did a bang up job with dinner with a delightfully creamy butternut squash soup to begin, followed by a Prawn and Mango Curry with basmati rice. It was simply delicious despite C's concern over the slightly under-ripe mango. To finish we had a Strawberry tart with cream and it was all washed down with a lovely Chenin Blanc. A perfect end to a really great evening. We always have such a fab time together that I'm very thankful we've remained firm friends all these years.
I've realised it's so easy these days to lose touch with people that were once very special to us. I think in a way the plethora of new ways to contact people like Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging apps etc can actually lead to us to drift further apart. It's almost as though the fact we can contact people so easily now leads us to not contacting them at all. I think I actually stayed in contact with people far more when I had to try a little harder. I would obviously much prefer to see someone in person but failing that I liked phone calls or even emails. They always showed a little more thought than just firing off a message on Facebook or putting something on someone's wall. Don't get me wrong I'm guilty of doing both those things on occasion, if only because it seems like the more accepted way of contacting someone now. It just seems that all these social networking sites often create more problems than they solve. If I had a penny for every time a friend told me about issues that have sprung up in their life due to something said on Facebook, well, I would be much better off.
I think that certainly on FB there are two distinct groups of people - the FB Givers and the FB Takers. The Givers seem to feel the need to share every amazing thing that happens in their lives at every given opportunity, a constant electronic boast so to speak. The Takers, silently check out everyone else's lives but share little of their own, often a hair's breadth away from what might be considered stalking at times.
There are many reasons why people say they are on FB; to network, to share photos, to stay in contact with people who might not live in the same country to name but a few. Whatever the reasons, and they are certainly all valid, the one that people admit the least is that we are innately nosey individuals who like to be included in everything. We like to know what is going on in other's lives and can achieve this without actually having to ask. We can check statuses, see photos, read walls and comments and all with the click of a mouse or the tap of a finger. Thus it brings me back to my original point. These sites often do the exact opposite of their intention. We are not brought closer together, rather we experience other people's lives from a distance.
Perhaps I am just stuck in the past and in resisting change I will be left behind. However, I do know I am not alone in preferring life PFB (Pre-Facebook), a time when life seemed that little bit simpler. Life *can* exist without FB and all these other social networking sites it would seem, take dinner tonight for example, it was all arranged via SMS without FB in sight. Still using today's technology but without letting the entire world know of my plans. If I were brave enough I would log off Facebook permanently but then what if I missed something....
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