Saying farewell to communication.

On Sunday night while cruising around on face book (you know discovering whose pregnant, whose gotten fat, that sort of thing) I saw that some photographs of my ex “great love” ( Doctor Evil finger gestures here guyds) boyfriend had been tagged. It had been well almost a year since the last time I actually clicked on his page because his usual persistent status updates showed up fulfilling me on everything I could ever need to know about his job/girlfriend/family. I clicked on his page to look at the new photos and saw that his last status update had been months ago and was a rather dramatic bleak statement, all other interactions had ceased online. The photos had been uploaded by someone else. Needless to say I was shocked, was this guy lying in a pool of his own vomit in the inner city? Was he off on a retreat to discover himself in Thailand? Who knows?
First some background information, I’ve started recovering from the worst year of my life. You know all the crap Spiderman went through in the three movies? Worse then that, much worse.
· Auto Immune Hepatitis/Diabetes incapacitating me for six months.
· A brother who was violently kicking the crap out of me while I was ill.
· A relationship with a Nilhist ( now there’s nothing wrong with being a Nilhist but as Annie Hall showed us optimists and pessimists don’t mix well together)
· A broken leg.
My brother attempting to kill me.
While experiencing all of this I was deeply depressed and more then anything I wanted someone, ANYONE to notice and perhaps ring me up or come over for a visit. Instead most of my friends abandoned me only starting to speak to me again as I began to recover. I knew what it was like to feel hopeless, to see nothing in the future accept for a dementors kiss. This status update and the abandonment of the inter-web spoke to me. Something was wrong.
Back round info part two : The last time a friend fell of the radar on the internet it turned out she was suffering deep depression and her boyfriend was physically assaulting her. The home phone number I had for her was incorrect and when she finally came back online I felt terrible for not being there for her. I felt horrible not knowing this was going on so determined whenever I read anything that sounds suspicious I contact that friend no matter who they are in order to make sure their ok. I sent the guy a quick are you ok? Message, five days later and no word. So finally wracked with guilt I called him. First of all he wasn’t sure who I was, and then when he recognized me he called me “babes”. When I asked him why he posted a status update like that only to disappear for two months he was like “OMG THAT WAS ONLY FOR LIKE ONE DAY I’M FINE”.
This has inspired me to write the following MySpace/msn/blog status etiquette guide. First of all and this may shock you all out there I am not the only person in the world who cares about people. THERE ARE MORE OF US THEN YOU THINK. Everyone needs to make a melodramatic “hates the world” status update once in awhile but the thing is everyone can read what you are saying so following these rules.
1: When creating a status please remember people can read it, respond to concerned comments people LEAVE you.

2: If you’re not in the mood to respond to these comments because you’re still mad at your cat/boss/boyfriend/girlfriend/Elvis then at least give some sign within forty eight hours that you are alive.
3: If someone sends you an email sometime after you went AWOL concerned about you. ANSWER IT. IT’S NOT THAT HARD. It will take thirty seconds of your life to type “ I am fine, a dog is eating my face but I am awesome”.

I’m not the first person who has had to deal with this years ago in a Harry Potter online community a girl posted a suicide note which lead to hours of desperate ISP searching and cross checking blog information so the moderators could call the police and find out if she died. She was ok. In a more heart breaking case another girl fell of the radar and through the similar detective work the community discovered she was in a serious car accident.
We may be geeks but we do notice when our friends disappear online and it’s even scarier when it happens after something suspicious. Its fine saying farewell to the internet but when you do please do us a favor and let the people who care about you knows that you’re ok.