social networking via the internet

Yesterday I was playing pool on the games site Grab.com and met several interesting people, a young man from Kentucky who aspires to be a plumber, a person from Scotland who called sinking the cue ball, "potting the white," and a youngster from Montenegro who taught me a great phrase that translates in English to something like: "You are more lucky than you are smart." (A phrase we both agreed we would say jokingly to friends but not to strangers.) I found that when I was engaged in typing conversations and intermittently playing pool, I played badly. When I merely said "hi" and nothing else, and concentrated on the game, I did fairly well.

I am finding this to be true in real life as well, when I am focused on something, it goes easily. Reading, pottery, scanning large documents. But my ability to multitask has diminished. I desire more and more silent time that doesn't seem to exist.

Of course, it struck me that the people I was talking to might be obscuring their true identities, and that didn't bother me. I might not have been as comfortable ACTUALLY playing pool with these strangers, but we talked about life, school, music, and popular culture -- just as I would have talked with my friends. Perhaps we will each find each other again through this website or in real life and have this shared experience in common.