Fickle

It's true that people are fickle, they make it no secret that their loyalties only last as long as you're some good to them or popular. This is apparent in all forms of media; music, television, movies and even books. People only remember who you are as long as you are on the best seller list or in the big block buster. Any one of us could be like those stars, a few years down the road from being a pop trivia question or a VH1 special.

Not surprisingly enough, the Internet is one of the best places to see this, with things like myspace, facebook, instant messengers and even forums; people form these bonds on them as if they are together in real life, they do many of the things real life friends do without the element of actually being there. Sometimes those bonds grow into something more than a friendship...

But all too often those bonds aren't built to last, one or both of the parties don't take things as seriously as they would with a real friend. And the Internet is a breeding ground for phony people. People who can pretend to be what they're not. People who can stab you in the back from a world away and never have to own up to it because there's never any way for you to look them in the eye, there's always that block button...

A programmer would tell you that time matters very little to data, that as long as the container the data is stored in whether it be a hard drive or CD remains safe, the data will not degrade or corrupt from age alone. But on the Internet, a system made entirely of bits of data, time seems to be all that matters. Not just time in the ebay auction sense, but time as in how long you have talked to someone.

A "friend" you have talked to for years might suddenly forget you if you don't see them online for a month, not answering an email or message fast enough might mean you get deleted from a "friend's" contact list and address book; a myspace friend you added less than a week ago can delete you because you haven't spoken to them since the day of the add. If anyone here thinks I am joking, I have had both of these happen to me. If a person who is too far away to even drive in a day can receive and open and message within seconds after you sending, why shouldn't it be that the same person when replying can't think bad things of you when you don't reply to the same message in seconds.

If there's one thing you can be sure about people, its that you can't trust them, most of them are out to get something. A lot of them lie or are two faced, I know people right now who I can tell and prove are two faced or act other than they want to appear to others. For every kind hearted action on the Internet, there seems to be three evil ones.