hal tweets ·11:28 AM
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
2008,
18:41 GMT
Hal Needs New Friends Event—Final Thoughts
Posted by: Hal
So thanks to everyone who took the trouble to comment on the previous post which tells the sort of sad tale of my Hal Needs New Friends Night (long story short – one person showed up).
Since that night I’ve been communicating with the people who said they were coming or maybe coming and didn’t show, and otherwise talking to people about the event and asking them what they think happened. From all this discussion as well as from the comments posted to the blog, I’ve settled on three main interlocking reasons for why (leaving out for now the possibility of my general lameness) no one showed up.
First, people say they’ll come or say maybe they’ll come but they don’t feel any actual obligation to attend – “definitely attending” on Facebook seems to mean “maybe” and “maybe attending” seems to mean probably not though I like the idea of attending, just not the actual process of having to go through the tiresome ordeal of showing up somewhere. Writes one of the “Maybes”: “Hi Hal, It’s funny because I often say ‘maybe’ I’ll come to things when I can’t come. I’d have liked to come to meet you but I live in BC. Saying I’m not coming always seems so final…So I usually say Maybe.” Another person who said they were definitely coming wrote me to say they were going to come but they live an hour’s drive away add “gas…you know.” Now obviously if you can’t afford the gas, I understand that, but it’s not as if the price of gasoline changed so dramatically in the week between that person said she was coming and the day of the actual event. So I’ll chalk it up to the “probably not but there’s a slight chance I’ll be around maybe” unique to the world of Facebook.
The second thing I realized: people are busy. They barely have time for their old friends, let alone time to make new ones. They’ve got jobs, hobbies, things to do, places to go. Life gets in the way. One “maybe” told me that instead of coming out she played Wig and smoked a joint at her boyfriend’s friend’s place. She made it sound way more exciting than anything I could have ever come up with: “We smoked some killer weed…then the games began. I virtually bowled, boxed my man (and won) played a Lego version of Indiana Jones, walked a tightrope. It was pretty nifty.” A fellow had a job interview the next morning. Another “maybe” was going to come but decided against it because she had to work in the morning. Another maybe ended up having ultimate Frisbee night and a confirmed attendee bailed out to go, of all things, to the George Michael concert. (Can’t compete with that…I guess.) A “maybe” spent his evening returning tiles he bought for his basement that his wife nixed as too expensive: “So, I had to haul back 25 boxes of heavy tiles, bring down to the basement, one box at a time, and carry back the other boxes of tiles which were already in the basement, load them up in the car, drive to Home Depot and get my money back.” We’re so busy working and scheduling and renovating (both our virtual and cyber properties) we barely have time to breath, let alone make new friends. I think it’s fair to argue that many people are stressed and tired and constantly on the go – our society does not reward leisure and does not encourage us to make time to meet new people in our community.
Finally, and this is certainly related to the other two phenomenon, there’s the question of social anxiety and awkwardness. Just as my one friend Paula almost didn’t come because she felt weird walking into a bar alone to meet a stranger, several people reported that they intended to come but in the end just couldn’t muster up the courage. Writes a “maybe”: “I wanted to go, and had plans to attend with my friend. When she bailed, I didn’t have enough confidence to go on my own. Sad but true. I can and do travel alone, go to movies and restaurants alone, attend literary and gallery events, and do a myriad of other things alone. But going to a bar alone to meet a stranger who obviously already has a terribly fascinating cabal of friends I just didn’t feel I had the social stamina for.” Extrapolate from this kind of comment and you could make the argument that people are, in fact, more likely to attend an “event” they are invited to via Facebook then accept an invitation to a personal encounter. An event is anonymous. You don’t commit, you don’t extend yourself, don’t feel like there’s someone on the other end judging you. An event, like a night at home watching tv or surfing other people’s pages, is far less of a trial than a non-event involving actually having to meet and engage with other people in real life. The more disengaged we are, the more comfortable we feel. This is, surely, one of the consequences of Peep culture. Or you could flip it around and put it this way: The more we learn to “engage” with each other through mediated environments, the less comfortable we are just meeting up. “Meeting you would make you ‘real’,” noted a perceptive comment posted on this blog. “They would have an emotional connection which brings in all that emotional baggage like guilt (for not following Twitter, skipping your blog a few times, etc.).” In other words, it’s far less complicated to peep from a distance. In other words, all this social media might actually create distance and a reluctant to meet than a desire to meet.
In the end, people were generally mortified for me. Several expressed true repentance, at least two people sent me their phone numbers and told me I should call them if I still wanted to hang out, and many people promised (albeit vaguely) to buy me a beer when and if our paths crossed in the future. Everyone felt if not sorry for me, then sorry for how the night turned out and for their role in being one of those people just a little too busy, too distant, too unsure, to attend. People are kind and caring (from a distance). It’s just that life, the way our lives are structured and organized, gets in the way.
2008,
23:45 GMT
So It Happened Like This…
Posted by: Hal
Last night I held my “Hal Needs New Friends“ Event at the Rhino Bar on Queen Street, downtown West, Toronto. I invited everyone who reads this blog (normally between 20 and 50 people a day, some new, some returning readers), all the people who are friends with me on Facebook who I have never met (around 600 people), and everyone who follows me on Twitter (20 people) to drop by, take a short quiz on my life, and have a drink on me. So how many people took me up on the offer?
One.
One person came by the Rhino.
That one person was a very fun, interesting person and it was great to meet her. But, uh, still. One? On my Facebook event page 14 people said they were coming. Two messaged me the day of and said they couldn’t make it. The rest just didn’t show up. 60 people said they were maybe coming. Turns out they meant: Maybe not.
Paula came. Paula took the quiz. Paula got a 5 out of 9 on the quiz. She didn’t know the name of my favourite restaurant, and she couldn’t answer the question: Hal often argues with his __________. She checked “Don’t Know” to the questions “Has Hal ever had a one night stand?” and “Does Hal write about his pet cat Yoda on his blog?” However, she correctly entered waydowntown as one of my favourite movies, correctly named two of my hobbies, she knew I was married, and she knew the name of one of my books.
My prospective new friend works in corporate communications, plays soccer, and likes to try new things and meet new people. She seems like a cool person. She drank a Tom Collins and stayed and talked to me for an hour or so before heading of. Thanks for coming Paula!
So what to make of this? On the computer, I’m a real swinging guy. Almost everyday someone I’ve never met adds me as a Facebook friend or decides to follow me on Twitter or reads this blog. But, apparently, that popularity doesn’t transfer over to real life interactions. I’m a winner online but a loser in real life? It doesn’t make sense.
I’ll think more on this, and would love your input. In the meantime, I’m going to get in touch with all the people who said they were coming or maybe coming and find out what they did that night instead. I’m not mad or anything. I just want to know why you want to be my “friend” online, but not in real life. I mean, one new friend is probably a pretty good result for any evening out. But still…I had a party and one person came. As for everyone else: It’s too bad. I would have loved to have met ya.
Hal Needs New Friend Photo Essay (courtesy of Adam Smith)
I’m waiting for the party start!
So where is everyone?
A potential friend!
Hal and his new pal Paula bond
Hal drinks one last beer: a Young’s Double Chocolate Stout — bittersweet…
Hal heads home.
2008,
16:31 GMT
Hal Needs More Friends Happens Tonight!
Posted by: Hal
Tonight in Toronto I'll be gathering with anyone who reads this blog, follows me on Twitter, or is my Facebook "Friend" and wants to be my friend in real life. So if you read this and want to drop by, I'm at the Rhino Bar from 8 to late. Click here for the original invitation with the address and all that. Note: If I already know you, you're not invited!
So I'm pretty excited about the happening tonight. I'm going to put together a little "what do you know about Hal?" quiz to give attendees. Who will come? Nobody? Three people? Twenty? I'll be disappointed if no one shows up, but only because I have to drink alone all night. But now is not the time for analysis. It's the time for me to shave and start thinking about what I should wear!
See ya tonight, I hope.
2008,
19:00 GMT
Hal Needs New Friends Happens Tomorrow and GPS Snitch Update
Posted by: Hal
Just got back from the Rhino where I met a National Post photographer who took my picture for a story they're doing on the Hal Needs New Friends Event , which comes up tomorrow tonight! Remember, if you read my blog or are my Facebook pal or follow me on Twitter and have never met me, you're invited! Will I see you there? Will I be sitting in the back of the Rhino drinking alone? Will I be mobbed by potential new pals? Only time will tell.
In the meantime, I sent W. to work today with GPS Snitch. She took her bike along College Street heading East to University. She was traveling at a clip of about 12 miles per hour. She stopped at College and Manning for about five minutes. I wonder what she was doing? I'll ask her when she gets home of course. In the meantime, I just traced her again. She's still at work. It's so much more convenient to spy...uh...to Snitch on her than it is to actually have to call her.
Well, that's my update right now. It's hot so I'm going to pick up the kid a bit early from daycare and take her to the kiddy pool around the corner where we can splash around.
2008,
15:05 GMT
Omar Khadr's Moment in Peep
Posted by: Hal
It’s almost embarrassing to put the plight of Omar Khadr into a Peep culture context, but nevertheless, the release yesterday of video surveillance tapes showing his interrogation have made him part of Peep. The tapes remind us that secret video made public can be a powerful force.
As with the Rodney King beating caught on video by happenstance or the video of 3 year old James Bulger being led out of a Liverpool shopping mall by two ten year-old boys who later took his life, secret video cameras have produced some of the most searing imagery of 21st century life. Not only are we drawn to these videos — drawn, inexorably, to the allure of real (unperformed) life actually happening — but the videos themselves operate in a moral grey zone between the necessity (or impossibility) of intervention, and the allure of Peep which turns everything, from the mundane to the horrifying, into consumable spectacle.
In the case of Khadr, as with all the examples above and so many others, the video tape doesn’t solve anything. While some see a tortured teenager, others, such as Toronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno, see “a freak of terrorism in Omar Khadr, groomed to kill” and a “a teenager blubbering for pity…A man-child mewling: ‘Nobody cares about me.’ “
DiManno’s column on Khadr makes many excellent points – he was a pawn used by his family, he was a child soldier accused of throwing a grenade in the course of fighting a war (not a terrorist). But at the end of it all she seems to be seduced by the video, drawn into interpreting the image. In so doing she gives the image more power than the known facts about the “man-child” and his circumstances. This is the danger of the Peep tradition of releasing secret videotape for all to see. We can rarely agree on what we see, and the videotape makes even more murky what, it seems, should be so clear.
For the record: Canada’s complicity in Khadr’s interrogation is an international embarrassment, read my complete take on it at here at allvoices.com.
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
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