Communicating without Social Media

I'm currently developing a friendship with someone who doesn't use any form of social media. He has no Facebook, no Twitter, no Tumblr, no last.fm, nothing. As frustrating as it is (I'm a hardcore social media creeper), I'm finding myself actually relieved. Rather than going to a profile and getting a quick read of a person, already knowing their likes and dislikes, what they jam to while they study and so forth, we're just talking back and forth, sharing college stories and past experiences and everything else under the sun.

This all is ultimately making me realize that this is the first time in a long time that I've had to actually do work for a friendship. Nowadays you can go to a party and come home to a handful of Facebook friend requests. Half the non-spam/corporate followers I get on Twitter are people I don't even know. All these people can see what I'm doing today at 4, and here I am shooting off an email or a text to find out the same thing.

All in all, it just feels more organic. I can't feign interest in something for the sake of conversation (I'm the worst at this; being an introvert I'm usually always counting down the time until I can get out of a conversation--apologies to everyone I've ever talked to) because I don't have a bulleted list of interests or books to talk about.

It's almost enough to make me forgo all my social media outlets and try to do this myself. At least until I think about how much work it would be and decide against it. But now I have so much respect for those who eschew our new forms of communication and networking in favor of email, face-to-face, and text. I just wasn't prepared for how much more real it felt.