The Project has begun

The Project has begun. So here’s the gist of it. I’ll write more later.
Beginning April 1, 2010 (last Thursday), I have one year to visit each of the 218 Facebook friends I had as of March 31, 2010. I won’t have to visit all the people I add after April 1; that would make things too complicated.
I will have a drink or meal with each one of my “friends,” and ask them five questions. Each of the questions is related to Facebook and friendship.
I’m doing this for several reasons. Among them: I only see a handful of my Facebook “friends” on what I’d consider a regular basis, so I think it’d be interesting to visit all of them in person. It would force me to get to know them better and, more importantly, travel all over the world to see them.
Also, having online “friends” who you almost never visit is quite different from having “real” friends, who you hang out with every week or month or at least once every few months. I want to get to the heart of why we think we need these online relationships and what those relationships really consist of and mean.
On that note, here’s a little anecdote from a cartoon.
I was watching The Cleveland Show a couple hours ago, and Cleveland ranted about the uselessness of Facebook. He said he’s friends with Margaret Cho. “A woman I’ve never met, nor have any desire to meet, is somehow my friend.” Then he proceeded to tweet something on Twitter.
I’ll let the reader draw their own conclusions about this gag. But I will note that only one of my Facebook friends is someone I’ve never met. And I do have a desire to meet him, because I loved his first documentary and look forward to seeing the next one.

Those are the basics of The Project. Do I capitalize “The” in The Project? I don’t know. I can’t promise I’ll be consistent with that.
One last thing I have to say. Originally, I was just going to visit each person on my friend list and not ask any particular questions. But then I decided that wouldn’t give me enough to write about. Sure, it’d still give me an excuse to travel, but I also want to explore other people’s views of relationships, and specifically how relationships have changed or stayed the same with/despite the advent of social networking Web sites.
I’m looking forward to writing about my first visits with my friends. I’ve already interviewed two of them, and I really hope I can keep the process of asking the Questions pretty informal. After all, I’m trying to connect with people I haven’t hung out with in a long time. I’m not just trying to do a huge survey.
I’ll have more tomorrow, hopefully.