I'm trying Twitter because people like Johnnie and Euan are getting enthused by it and if they say so, its worth a go. The real interest comes in what they are saying ABOUT it as much as what they are saying ON it.
They talk a lot about connecting and feeling as if the conversations that we have on the net help us understand who we are and allow a sense of community with other people who have similar experiences. Now for some meta. I think a lot of what has attracted old farts like him and him and me Jon and a LOT of others around our age is that the experience of being a man in the second half of the 20th century was actually pretty lonely.
We no longer worked in close quarters with a lot of peers with whom we socialised intimately out of work, many of us already knew people half a world away better than we knew those in our streets. Suburbia was not ever a great place to live.
I'd bet plenty of us are also closet or overt feminists who support our female friends, lovers and colleagues in their efforts to reach some equality in their lives but whose reasons for living in the world weren't ever fully adjusted to match that equality.
And then along came listservs. And blogs, and Twitter. Somewhere to show off, to argue and find insight and fellow feeling and test out someone before making a commitment to them (like providing a couch to crash on as they pass through, or a local guide and a bite to eat) and we fell upon it and lapped it up because we recognised that a whole lot of us are very alike, and NOW we can share that experience.
Probably
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