'Virtual Friends' in the 'Real World'

Last week saw the birth of the first commercially successful genetically cloned dog. Bernann McKinney had her Pitbull “Booger” recreated using skin cells from the deceased pet. Last month Thomas Beatie was the first man to have a baby and Dubai opens its proverbial doors to the first man-made snorkelling lagoon later this year. It seems people know exactly what they want and with constant advancements in technology, people are embracing more contrived solutions to ensure their needs are met with precision. So can it be the same for making friends?

The following specification is an exert from a 1995 Friday Ad page: “I would like to meet like-minded people who like to drink wine while reading the Sunday morning paper in the park; to visit galleries and museums at the weekends; to meet after work for drinks; and to generally enjoy the things this city has to offer”. This kind of specification would traditionally be reserved for the weekly “Desperately seeking” page of local newspapers. But not anymore....

Looking at what the social networks have to offer, it is clear that you can now go one step further in finding the perfect friend, and in half the time. Tom Perry, a 29 year old Head Hunter, new to the London area, used CitySocialising.com, an area-specific events-based social networking site, to make friends when his busy professional life left little time for anyone excluding his girlfriend. “These days you can use social networking sites to find pretty much your ideal friend. Ok..,” he hesitates then types his friend specification in to the screen. “I want someone who likes live music, lives in my area, male, straight, the same age as me and who is working in the same kind of job...Voila!” He exclaims and shows me a brunette man, 5”1 who works in recruitment, is new to London and likes include girls and live music. “And the great thing about this is that if I want to meet him,” click, “he is attending one of their events the day after tomorrow in the pub over there!” Tom points out the window of his flat. The immediacy of this tool is unique and attractive and it is no surprise that Social Networking Statistic figures showed that in 2007, 274000 million people were using the main online social networks.

A “Friend”, as dictated by the Oxford Dictionary is: “A person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations”. To build this “bond of mutual affection” it is assumed two people will have traits and preferences in common. Aristotle categorised friends as: “A single soul dwelling in two bodies” - if this is the case then it is obvious why social networks are leading to such successful friendships. Most online social networks members can be fans of bands, celebrities and authors; they can join appreciation societies; and demonstrate visually what they like. The likelihood of finding someone with similar interests and parallel desires is slim in daily life, so why not half the time it takes and find people from your area that “fit your friendship bill” by using friend building tools such as this?
“We met...and BAM!” Rachel Ducker, 22, has the glow of someone extremely contented as she recalls how she and partner Rob met. Rob and Rachel Ducker are just one of numerous couples to have met via a social network. “He friend requested me and then we slowly started web chatting, which turned into phone calls then we arranged to meet!” Rachel met Rob in Covent Garden, a central point between his home in Surrey and hers in Suffolk. With her family present, Rachel is convinced she “just knew, instantly” that she had found the man of her dreams. From that first meeting the couple travelled 200 miles every weekend to meet up and this February, a year and a half after the initial friend request, the couple moved in together in Sussex.

It seems that meeting on the web is an increasingly successful strategy for finding compatible partners, band mates, friends and flatmates alike and Rob and Rachel’s story will be familiar to many. There are even websites dedicated to couples who, after meeting on the internet, are now married! So why does this formula seem to work so well?

Tom Perry raised an interesting point regarding the taboos of internet friends. “There seems to be a real stigma attached to meeting people over the internet and I am not really sure why now. I used to think that people should be making friends with people they meet at bars and common interest events but since moving here I don’t have the time to do those things!” Making friends takes time. After an initial meeting finding a common time when two people are free is hard in itself and it is not until the third or fourth meeting that you really know if that person you have met is the friend for you.

Tom explains: “I wanted someone to play squash with and to go for a drink after work with. It can be hard to develope friends like that in an area like London, particularly as my job means I am not really free for long periods of time to get to know someone.”

Tom and his girlfriend Ruth started spending all their time together, but this lead to an extremely intense relationship. Ruth admits: “We woke up together, went to work together, went for drinks after work together and then went home together. It wasn’t healthy but I think it can be hard to find people in the same situation, particularly in a city like London where people can seem hostile.”

Tom’s sister told him to join CitySocialising.com, which in Tom’s words “is area specific and seems designed as a platform to find people to meet both online and offline at local events- not an online dating service to meet fit girls and laugh at oddballs”. The couple found two other couples of a similar age, both also new to London and started meeting up. “It did seem a bit contrived to start with - looking at potential friends stats; where they work; their interests; the music they like etc, but I have to admit it seems to have done the trick. Me and Chris (a friend from the site) now meet up for squash twice a week and me and Ruth have just booked to go on holiday with Matt and his girlfriend.”

This opinion seems to ring true and Tom and Ruth are one of many people who are now enjoying the benefit of “Real virtual friends”. Despite the initial worry of dehumanising friendships through online relationships, and the fear that social skills may not be learned by future generations; it seems social networks which act as a foundation for picking like-minded people to meet up with has its benefits.

Online dating and befriending is a very real and ever increasing phenomenon. The parallel universe offered to us by the internet seems to have a very similar soul as the “Real World” with people shopping, chatting, exploring and generally interacting with each other. There really is no better example of “a single soul dwelling in two bodies” and is time that the “Real World” and the online social networking one changed their status to “in a relationship.”

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