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Oh dear.
I have long resisted joining Facebook, on the grounds that in any race to collect the most friends, I will most certainly lose. As I am the webmaster for a non-profit that now has its own Facebook page, though, it seems a necessity to be able to see the “other” electronic home of Veterans PetReach.
Ack.
I’m not quite sure what happened, though, after I went to Facebook and created an account, but I now know where the expression “gone viral” comes from.
No sooner did I log in, than the hamsters within my laptop sprang to life, apparently churning through every email, photo, barely disclosed thought to generate a list of potential friends. Finished with that, the site then asked for permission to scan my email contact file for any possible friends. With each entry into my profile, more suggestions emerged.
Do you know people like this??? You know, the ones who can’t let you finish a thought without interrupting to name drop or ask a question. The site has attention deficit disorder…or at least it is making me feel like I have a touch of it myself.
Escaping from the ever tangling web of friends, friends of friends, and business associates of second cousin’s friends of friends of friends, I returned to what I thought would be the relative safety of my email.
It was not safe there either. Friend requests piled up in my inbox. They arrived at too high a rate, and from people I can’t quite place, for this to be a thoughtful process. I really don’t think 47 people have been sitting, staring at the Facebook account waiting for the precise instant that I signed up so that they could ”friend” me. The automated gathering of friends is seeming to accelerate, and I am feeling a little queasy from it all.
Fundamentally, I have a few problems. Firstly, I just used “friend” as a verb, which is profoundly disturbing. Secondly, I’m not so sure I like the idea of friendships being electronically and instantaneously developed. And lastly, between finding friends, loading my contact file, responding to requests and attempting to navigate back to my own page again, I now have no idea who my friends are.
I have no clear understanding of whom I have sent invitations to or whether I have responded appropriately to other requests. If I’ve left you out, I can assure you it was not intentional. If you are a complete and total stranger whom I have asked to be my friend, then I’m sorry, or hello, or please understand that I am not quite that desperate.
Oh dear.
I’ll be logging off for now. I think I am coming down with something.
It must be viral.
A number of the wonderful people I have been working with to help train the beast and I as a therapy dog team have also been working with the local VA and the woman who founded the original Pets for Vets program in California.
To read more about the program you can visit its website here, but, in short, the program matches shelter animals with a veteran living with a condition that could benefit from a companion animal. To hear a few success stories you might also want to view this 5 minute video.
My local friends are eager to start a program to help our local veterans (and find homes for the deserving shelter dogs). We’d like to become the pilot program for expanding Pets for Vets, and you can help.
Pepsi refresh is sponsoring a $250,000 grant to a deserving charity – the decision to be made by popular vote. If you have a few minutes to register, it won’t cost you a dime.
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