SOCIAL NETWORK SITES NOT A GOOD SUBSTITUTE FOR HUMAN WARMTH!

The advent of internet based social network sites has completely redefined our socialising habits. The era in which the only friends we made were the ones we physically met at our usual social joints is long gone.

I only used to have a handful of friends then since am not essentially a party animal.

But enter Facebook and my space. I think I now have more cyber friends than I can handle on any single occassion if all of them had to honour my invitation.

Sometimes when am unable to pay for my unlimited Data plan(sometimes for up to three months in a row-remember this is Africa where we survive on less than one dollar per day!),I feel like am betraying them by not chatting regularly.

But this is not so anymore thanks to my wanting to test my popularity by sending out invitations to those I knew were within precincts of Nairobi where I live.

I had planned to do this in order to impress my wife who has very low opinion of my always tinkering with the laptop at times when am supposed to be warming my side of the bed.

She is also very suspicious of some of my so called friends who are of opposite sex and their profile pictures don't help in this when they pop up on her face from my laptop only for her to see that they must be half her age. The only consolation she gets is my assurance that they are virtual friends and the only propability that we will ever meet is equal to that of my winning Nobel Prize for cancer cure!

But my EGO drove me to rush to where the Angels fear to tread. I sent out dozen invitations to one and all for a small barbeque so that we can get to know each other more personally now that we were all so jolly online.

The day came but my wife was sceptical all the way through and she managed to pursuade me to opt for light refreshments instead of baberque just in case the turn up was light. I was furious but I decided to go with her plan till the numbers swell and then I will start harrasing her to keep up with the heavy turn out.

I waited. One hour. My girlfriend turned up. She is also in my list of friends and I had hoped that a heavy turn out would mask her presence among other friends.

We had a small talk that was still able to draw out the antenna from my wife. Another hour. My neighbour who is not on the list of my friends came in to borrow a hammer or something. I was already so uptight to listen to what he was saying. He stayed a bit prolonging the agony of having to confront my wife first on explanation as to who this was,and second as to what we were going to do with what had looked like modest amount of refreshments now looking like a forest on the self service bench.

I quickly sneaked into my facebook site to confirm that all invitees had confirmed their attendance. Report? They all had including my now uncomfortable girlfriend.

Sweat started coming down in buckets from my face. I tinkered with some glasses of refreshments and with some sheepish smile managed to balance two which I presented to my wife and girlfriend and then called the TWO WOMEN IN MY LIFE to toast to my VIRTUAL friends!