Friendship In the Net? It's A Delusion!

Internet, the last recourse, for the desperate!

Everything that happened in my life for the past half a decade pushed me into the direction of the internet life. I am not writing now for anyone to read this time. I am writing to myself concerning my observation and experiences in the internet since I started in 2009.

Yes, I may sound radical but I am speaking my truth as far as my involvement with the internet is concerned. Yes I am still here but I got no friends coming from the net except those I personally know being my best friend, my daughter, my ex-colleagues, and ex-students, my grandchildren too; and I can include my husband too...in fact if not for him who is in the other end of the world and who I can only have contact in the net...I would have disappeared completely.

My world without the nuisance of the internet

When Colin was alive, I had nothing to do with the internet. I didn't even have a computer or a laptop although I had been teaching for years in a Computer school. My computer in school when I had an office as Department Chair for BSBA, was only used for test questions, making grades, writing lectures and other school paper...sometimes I played solitaire but never in the internet. When everybody was crazy about the internet, I was busy about my job and my social life with friends both in school and outside friends to hang around Rosalino's and Swagman.

I hang around friends and acquaintances coming from different parts of the world and of various walks of life. It was then that I met Colin. I also hang around friends in school, my colleagues, Mr. Musngi, Ma'am Veron, Ma'am Bamba, Dr. Angeles, and the other doctor...just to name a few. I only had my daughter and myelf in our apartment and both of us were teachers; she was busy with her own life and I was busy with mine. We had a maid to handle house chores; she had a fiance, I had my Colin. Life was wonderful.

But when Colin was dying of cancer, he bought me a laptop...his replacement; I didn't know what to do with it; I was not interested. I wanted my life with the person I love and who loves me as much, not a computer to have fun with; not a fantasy machine..

With Colin around, the internet was non-existent to me, it was just some tools in the office.

And so Colin died in 2008, my daughter married her co-teacher fiance the same year; what's left for me? My laptop and myself...and my job, and I started for the first time ever to live alone in my apartment. Loneliness and alone! Alone when at home; I could still have contacted my friends and enjoy their company even after work but the laptop, yes! Colin's legacy to me and his request for me to write our love story so I get myself absorbed in writing it.

But then Betty, Colin's sister had installed an internet for my laptop so that we can still communicate through email even when she is in England and I am here in the Philippines...

Yes, the internet...and when I finished the story and while not writing to Betty, the internet was full of fun for a lonely person like me, so I explore; that was Betty's suggestion, find my interests in the net. So I collected pictures, beautiful pictures, flowers, birds, castles...and more; just to kill my time while alone at home.

I took pictures of myself with the built-in camera and combined them with the beautiful pictures I had collected from the net. I did research works, written lectures. I made more than a thousand picture combinations. I learned photoshop...lots of things to learn and explore...

Then one day, in 2010, somebody from somewhere in the globe sent me a message...I was surprised...so it was the "chat" everybody was crazy about. I have no technical knowledge in the computer except learning as I explore my interest...I had never thought that there could be "virus" and danger in exploring too much.

The first chat was a surprise...he seemed polite but strange to me...then another and another...some are friendly but lots were bastards...they were asking me to open my webcam...I didn't know what they meant as I didn't know I had one...and didn't know how to open or operate.

I hated most of the people idiots, perverts, sex maniacs, the demented and what more in yahoo; so I learned to explore and landed in a social site, tagged. I surfed and had registered in facebook but I didn't know what to do with them.

I put some pictures and wrote my qualifications and information as required in Tagged...and that was the beginning of "evil".

I met Douglas Theel there and said he would marry me...amazing isn't it? Someone will marry me, I won't be alone anymore and he seemed to be nice...Yes, naive and ignorant me.

That guy was a devil in the net. He came to the Philippines alright but after hacking me and he did not come for me but for another woman, a "simple farm woman in the remote barrio" with a host of clans of relatives surrounding him. Well, he deserves it; good riddance.

Then I categorically stated in Tagged that I would chat only with a wholesome person who is sincere to marry me...and that was Greg, out of thousands of men who would like to chat with me. But the hacking continued; I am not sure if it was Douglas or those I quarreled in the net are the ones hacking me, but it started when Douglas and I dumped each other in a terrible fight. Terrible hacking experiences pestered me that eventually destroyed my laptop.

I met my husband in Tagged and I thought that would be the end of my internet days; but we cannot be together, bureaucracy in both our governments gives us so much hard time. It's been one year and we are still apart; I am still alone and lonely even when we chat every day...it's just not right...this is one reason why I am writing in hubpages...just to kill my time...not to find friends; it's just impossible.

And I don't want to have "friends" in the net; I don't trust anyone here. I am not the type who can have "imaginary" or fantasy friends. The net is a jungle of rat race.

Everybody is trying to present himself as the nicest, the best, the most intelligent person...etc. and the god here is money...I just write here but I am aware that some people with ulterior motives are trailing me and are trying to figure out, if not already, how they can make money out of what I am doing as fun...

I am not saying that nobody is good here...in hubpages, there may be some good people with good motives...but I see what is common here...they are all friends and allies supporting each other for money...I am an outsider who just happens to be here....

Friends? No way...there's nothing like that here for me. I know what "friend" means.

I will applaud for those who can be a millionaire for hubbing...I won't be part of it...I will be a millionaire if I focus my mind there...but not in the expense of the so-called "friends". It's a delusion.

I will still achieve my goal or manifest my dream, with or without my husband...he is a product of my internet days...if he is sincere and honest and true to his words that he is not an internet personality then he will be part of my dream come true.

I hope so, but I still have doubts...there's just nobody to trust here in the internet...even if he is already your husband...how much more with the so-called "friends"....????