Reality VS. teh interwebs

Spring and I were spending some quality time with Hazel on the couch last night, when, under the door slides a piece of paper (followed by what sounded like quickly retreating footsteps).  I gave Spring a look, because, I had thought this was the dreaded "Please stop your f*cking dog from whining all day" note I was expecting we would receive at some point.  It wasn't that, thankfully.  Rather, it was an invitation to join this social networking site called meettheneighbors.org

Meettheneighbors is a site designed to - you guessed it - meet the people you live with and near!  Now, I'll ju

st start off by saying that, I think using the Web as a social networking tool is fine.  I, myself, spend a bit of time each and everyday perusing Facebook or MySpace (of course, not at work...).  However, I do that because it keeps me abreast on the goings-on of people that I normally don't see - friends that live far away, friends whose work schedules don't allow us time to catch up, and friends who add funny pictures of their new puppy.......................................... What?

A Web site that promotes "meeting" your neighbors, though?  Does anyone else think this seems, oh I don't know, counterintuitive?  I understand people are busy, and even that some people are shy, bu

t if I want to meet a neighbor, I'll go meet a neighbor.  I'm not generally the kind of person who befriends someone digitally before I do in real life (although, I did court Spring through MySpace, but, that doesn't count because I knew her in person, first).

We immediately sat down and logged into it, of course.  Low and behold, a whopping four people were registered, including us.  I'm not math wiz, but, I'm guessing there are more than four people in our building with computers.  Needless to say, no one had even completely filled out their information sections, and there were no posts or anything.  I'm guessing they all did exactly what we did - sign in to see who signed in.

Long story short - say hi to people as you enter/leave your building; don't stare at the floor when you're riding the elevator; offer your doorman/super/landlord some cookies; and above all, don't rely on teh interwebs to connect you with the world at large... Mind you, I say this from a blog post - oh the irony.