When we’re children, most of us are encouraged to dream about the future; what we want to be, where we want to live, etc. and then when we get to the teenage years it becomes less about what we want to be and more about finding who we are now. That fabulous phrase that so many people use comes into play, “finding myself” – whatever the heck that means! Generally, once we actually reach adulthood, we’re pretty much supposed to forget all of this and just be. Be who we are, doing what we’re doing and if we’re lucky, we like it; if not, it’s pretty much tough, there’s not enough time in a day to try and change it.
Or so it was…
These days we seem to be encouraged to dream all the way through life and never settle for anything less than perfection. Some of us are natural born dreamers; every personality test I’ve ever taken and more recently, the Strengths Finder test I took, all say that I’m a dreamer. When I speak to those around me, I realise that they haven’t spent their whole lives wishing for something else, it seems to just be me who has to spend all day, every day in a bubble in order to survive. Essentially, I will never be satisfied because I’m always striving for something better in the future. I blame my mother; she told me that if I worked hard I’d get everything I wanted so I am working hard and now I’m expecting everything I want! (That’s a joke…sort of.) Anyhow, being of a naturally dreamy disposition, I realise I have fallen prey to the virtual world and become a victim of my virtual life.
Rather than really living my real life and changing the things about it that I hate dislike, I’ve created a pseudo-Sam. She’s the online presence that represents me and she is way cooler than I am. Pseudo-Sam wears cool clothes; I know this because they’re on WIWT.com. Pseudo-Sam is a writer- uh, I wonder where you’ll find evidence of that!?! Pseudo-Sam is also way up-to-date on all the latest trends; Twitter tells her what they are. All of these web-based activities represent the me that I wish I was; pseudo-Sam only associates with the people I wish I was like, the people whose lives I covet. The most realistic version of Sam you’ll find is on Facebook. Facebook got in there first; it has both Sam’s – the photos represent pseudo-Sam who is always happy and loving life and the statuses represent real Sam who is mainly disappointed that she hasn’t morphed into her pseudo-persona.
What is this strange world that we inhabit and how do we extract ourselves from it? Will I really have a life left if I cancel my Facebook, Twitter, WIWT.com, Pinterest and WordPress accounts or will I collapse without pseudo-Sam there to prop up the flimsy real Sam that remains? It’s a genuinely tough question to answer and for now, I think my flimsy self is too scared to find out so I’m going to let pseudo-Sam carry on playing, I mean, is it really that different to watching SATC and wishing I was Carrie Bradshaw!?! x
30 Something Dreamer 
I switched my Facebook account off for about two weeks, some months back.
At first I was like ‘hmmm…what can I do?’ As I found myself on my laptop not knowing what to go on, or on my phone with my finger hovering over the Facebook app..but then, a few days later, I found I had more time for everything!
Going to the shops, actually talking to somebody with my mouth, or going to see someone – it was brilliant. I realised that a lot of the shit I was reading on FB was exactly that, SHIT!
We all like to know what’s going on in peoples lives, and feel happiness for them if something is going well…but seriously, fuck off with telling me about fake tan promotions, or how drunk you got again, or how much you lurrrrvvvvvvvveeeeeeeee your partner xxxx over and over and over and over again.
Then, I reactivated my Facebook account, and got sucked in again.
Anyway….I think with social media, a lot of people, and that includes me, has a real life, a virtual life, and a dream life. But, as we only have one life, they are all therefore part of our, one life.
*Profound*
Can you find virtual balance in your virtual life? We get drawn in to what seems like connections with people, because we can as you say be anything to anyone. A powerful drug. In the real world we are who we are and it is harder to let people see that, we hide ourselves don’t talk to people about our lives and keep our own council.
Try this, when someone asks how you are, tell them, then ask about them too…
And listen to the reply, see if they want to talk to someone. You will be surprised.
Jim