Keeping friendships alive through Gmail and Skype can be disorienting enough for someone living time zones away from her former life. Of course, it'd be even harder without the Internet, but then maybe we'd be obliged to live more completely in the present: the here and now. Take Facebook, for example: sure, it's great suddenly to be in touch with people you haven't seen or heard from in 15 years, but that doesn't exactly help you get on with your life on the other side of the Atlantic. Not only do virtual networks like Facebook propel you into another time zone but back into another phase of your life.
Nothing refutes real-life parameters more, though, than our weekly flirts with "imaginary friends" (as my mom likes to call them): that is, the Susans (and Mikes) and Fionas (and Michaels) of primetime TV. Soon you find yourself racing home for a date with DH (and when you're abroad, it's not as simple as just turning on the télé: first you need to wait for your "friends" to air in the US, and then you can start trying to find them online [or ask Mom to send you their whole season on dvd]), rather than immersing yourself in your adopted culture. But if the alternative would mean TV à la française (i.e.: Ségolène live from the Zénith), give me savvy American smut (albeit delayed) anyime.
Teri Hatcher and Gabrielle Anwar as Susan Mayer and Fiona Glenanne. [Online images].
