You do not really know your online friends.
Although you think you do, it’s an illusion
They make you feel as if you understand
Each other, but in fact you barely know
What sort of person’s staring at the screen.
Online, we are not who we really are.
Their profile may not tell you who they are:
It’s calculated to attract more friends.
Who tells the truth, hidden behind a screen?
The perfect chance to spin a grand illusion
Of popularity. Come on, you know
You’ve done the same, and so you understand
So why is it so hard to understand
That others hide the truth of who they are?
We like to think that we are in the know
And can’t be taken in. We call them friends
Participating in our own delusion
Invest so much emotion in the screen
We scrutinise their pictures on the screen
And though, as adults we can understand
That all we see may well be an illusion
Still we believe they’re who they say they are
Though one dimensional, they are our friends
Could they be hiding something from us? No!
Or, if they are, we do not want to know
We’d rather trust the image on the screen
Implicitly, than really know the friends
We make online. Who wants to understand
All of the faults that make them who they are?
Sometimes we just prefer the damn illusion!
But now and then that beautiful illusion
Is shattered, and then we are forced to know
Exactly how unreal those friendships are
No more than pixels cluttering the screen
And then, we briefly truly understand
That friends we make online are not real friends.
We think they are, but that is pure illusion.
Our friends are people whom we really know.
We trust the screen, and fail to understand.
Tom Juniper Poetry 