Ping!!!!! Ping!!!!!!

This morning, a friend forwarded something to my bbm and I was like ‘wow’.  We have had issues like ‘don’t married people keep in touch with their friends?’, ‘why don’t you keep in touch?’ and so on. You know the normal things. The forwarded message titled ‘delete theory’ was all about people who you should delete from your bbm. The list was countless; proud friends, feeling too pretty/rich, you are always the first to ping, you added someone and he was like ‘how did you get my pin?’, the person hasn’t pinged for three weeks, the person’s only reply is LOL, she threatens to delete you,  you celebrate your birthday and no message at all, your friend is giving you rules, you have put the person’s pictures as DP several times but yours has never been on his own DP, your pings are showing R yet no reply. The list is countless. For most part of the message I laughed.

I would have loved to share it but the dirty language wouldn’t permit. The conclusive part talks of having only good friends on your bbm for a new year. That makes a lot of sense. I personally have had to remove some people who were simply occupying space but sometimes, you have to understand. After reading through, I knew I was under siege and had to free myself so I started explaining that sometimes people are truly busy and not being able to chat with you doesn’t mean you are not on their minds. I went ahead to  explain that BBM is just to keep in touch and that many relationships today are down just because they allowed pinging to replace calls, sms and even physical visit. At last, my friend agreed.

Now, to get to my point, there are many relationships and even marriages out there that pinging has watered down quality-wise. At first, it will look and sound interesting reading lovely lines from your loved ones and listening to their audio messages but as time goes on; you will discover that pinging has put some kind of restrictions on the ‘flow’.  Not with the way we Nigerians take things ‘ga ga’. I was in Dubai sometime ago and a man asked me why every Nigerian had a blackberry. I tried to explain that he has a wrong premonition about us but he was not convinced until I brought out my nokia phone (that was before I caught the bb bug too o). My fellow country people like to use things that are in vogue, it doesn’t matter how empty their stomachs are. For instance, it makes no sense if u did hideous and odious things just to get money to buy a Brazilian hair. (That’s for another time.)

Pinging is good, don’t get me wrong. You need it sometimes during emergencies and casually to keep in touch but it should never take the place of real interactions between people. Surprisingly, it is fast becoming a menace.

The points below will help you a lot;

**Just because someone is less busy and always has time to chat when bored (he/she gets bored most times) should not make you believe he or she is a good friend.

**Sometimes when a guy who is trying out his luck with the girls who’s PIN he just got bombards you with messages, you believe he may be right for you because he gives you attention. He may be chatting with other girls simultaneously and baiting you with sweet words 24 hours.

**Someone who chats with you is someone who has paid his monthly due not someone who sometimes has to go and buy credit just to talk to you. Chatting is endless and there is no time constraint.

**Just like the big brother, GSM, aids and abets a crime to lie, I guess bbm does it better. I saw a clip of a lady on phone with her fiancé and she was busy lying to him that she was at Abuja. Unknowing to her, the guy was around the same noisy area where she was making the call (in Lagos), so the guy just said ‘turn around, I’m also in Abuja’. LOL.  With bbm, there is no noise to give the liar away.

 

**Ask yourself, ‘among all my bbm contacts, how many do we still get to interact through other means?’ For instance, you only get to know that your friend is now married through her DP or that your cousin travelled to the Bahamas and you keep deceiving yourself that you are still close. Or you accuse someone of not keeping in touch and he is like ‘but I say hi to my friends generally through my profile na’. Imagine. So?

**If you are dealing with a courteous person, he will return your pings but that doesn’t mean it is from his heart. He may only like to play along by typing LOL to your dry jokes or forward dry messages from people just to have some activity for you.

** Some don’t even send you, if you like ping them till next year, they won’t find time to reply.

Bottom line of all this is that people should try to value their relationships and friendships. BBM can be handy sometimes but it shouldn’t and mustn’t be the basis of your life. It should not be the life-line of your relationships with people, whether platonic or not. So, don’t lose your loved ones to carelessness. Also, don’t date on BBM. By this I mean some people think they know their intending spouses just because they are always chatting 24/7. You must create time to mingle physically. If you are reading this, I want to hear your comments about what people can do to strengthen their relationships in this new era of pinging without getting their fingers burnt. You can also give instances of what you or others have done in a situation where pinging saved the day in your own relationship. Live right and make a mark. One love.