IR #023

I was lucky enough to travel a lot in the past 31 years. The reasons have been for work, education and many other. With the introduction of Facebook, it became much easier to stay in touch with all of the friends I have made over the years. “Add me on Facebook” has indeed become one of the most common closing statements to a new conversation with a stranger.

“Staying in touch” however is no longer the case. We do like photographs, watch videos, comment on statuses but how many of us actually make time to meet each other? I agree, friends are scattered all around the world, our timetables don’t match and our family circumstances to an extent might prevent this from happening. How much of this is actually true and how much of it is an excuse made for convenience?

I have lived in 8 cities, studied in 7 educational institutions and have a HUGE extended family. This can be an explanation for my large friends list on Facebook. (Well… the truth is that I am awesome and people love me)

I have approximately 1900 friends on Facebook, of which I engage with maybe 60% of them. By engagement, I mean it in the strictest social media sense. Facebook defines engagement as likes, comments and shares. I recently asked myself if that was enough. I had not met with some of my friends in years and merely being connected did not seem enough.

This is why I have embarked on this personal social campaign #Itstimetomeet. 

#Itstimetomeet is a very simple concept. I will meet up with every one of my Facebook friends over the coming months over a cup of coffee or a beer. To document it, I will take a selfie with them and write about each and every one of them in my blog here. It’s not much, but it is a start.

I accept that meeting 1900 people spread over 5 continents is not something that is currently practical. That is why I have decided to narrow it down to approximately 400 of my friends who live in Dubai, my current city of residence. Phase 2 will involve the whole of the UAE. After this I will take a call on how to meet up with the rest.

I look forward to meeting up with you all, catching up on old times, meeting some of you after ages (some of you for the 1st time) and also meeting up with your families. I will drop you all a message on Facebook, please do respond with your phone number so that I can call you up and fix up a time and date. Alternately, if you read this post do drop me a line.

Remember, coffee is on me!!

Looking forward.