There’s more to this story, but none of which I feel is the business of the Internet.  Maybe a book someday (man, it would make a good semi-fictionalized memoir), but not the Internet… not yet, perhaps not ever.

To say that I have little experience with traditional “family” is an understatement and it shows in how I’ve dealt with the recent online reunion between myself and my two half-brothers, D. and M.  I’ve spent the last 19 years of my life winging it on my own and accountable to no one but myself for my choices or my actions — even the overall idiocy of my early 20′s.   Suddenly, this insta-family had me up in arms, feeling the need to not embarrass them, to somewhat censor myself, worrying about what they’ll think of me.   I realize we’re just three people who share DNA and we’re not technically “family”, but having spent so much time without one, I rather like the idea.  It gives me heartburn, but it intrigues me.

Both brothers seem like very kind, funny, intelligent, upstanding men. They have lovely families and what appear to be successful and happy lives. They’re both handsome and have traits that remind me of my…er… our dad.  It’s kind of nice to know I’m not the only one left with a bit of Dad in them. It’s been sort of fun to note similarities between the three of us and differences, as well.  I’m happy to be getting to know them as people — not necessarily as siblings — even though it’s been interesting at times.

I ‘reunited’ with one brother, M., through this very blog a few years ago and panicked accordingly.  Just because he found me didn’t mean I wanted to be found, blah blah blah. What gives you the right to barge into my life, blah blah blah.  This is not the Waltons, yadda yadda yadda.  I eventually got over that — ok, I’m working on it — but it’s still a little weird for me sometimes.  We have similarities — probably more than we realize.  He’s genuine, honest and pretty patient, but much like me in temper.  We bicker like siblings… which I find oddly comforting.

The other I thought I would never, ever meet.  I really truly thought he would just be some mystery — like a unicorn — but thanks to the Internet, he recently found a post I made a decade ago on a genealogy website and now… well, now I follow him on Twitter.  Ah, technology!  Bringing people together one tweet at a time.  He’s great, though, and I like his sense of humor… it’s sort of familiar in a way.

What hadn’t occurred to me until this morning is I’m no longer an only child. In fact, I’m not the only, nor am I the oldest.  I’m the youngest of four children. (There’s an eldest half-sister, V., whom I’ve met a couple times, but who didn’t seem interested in staying connected… which is fine, whatever — I kind of get it.)

Being single with no husband or children of my own and without any immediate or extended family really in my life for the last couple decades, it’s been a lot of information to take in.  A lot.  While it might take some time (if ever) before we’re fighting over a drumstick at Thanksgiving,  I’m glad we’ve sought each other out.  I’ve never been a little sister before.

Similarly, Twitter.  At first (and sometimes still) I didn’t ‘get it’.  As an old school blogger, I found the idea of microblogging kind of weird.  I didn’t want to know what everyone was doing right that minute.  But then I gave it a chance and actually quite enjoy it… because I use it the way I want to use it and not how Mr. Know-It-All Blogger says I should.  Sure, it’s almost killed my desire to blog in a sense because I can spit out whatever I’m thinking right when I’m thinking it rather than try to craft a blog post around one clever thought and, like anything else, Twitter and it’s users do things that bug me, but I take it with a grain of salt. Nothing is perfect and I have to assume that somewhere someone finds my tweet-style excrutiating.  Different strokes.

I’ve run into a rash of articles lately that all have a running theme of unholy hatred for Twitter (and/or Facebook).  I don’t mind tips and tricks kinds of articles or the occasional cheeky humor-based commentary (especially #2), but these official-looking “articles” (*cough*blogentries*cough*) that do nothing but complain about how people “aren’t being true to the conversation” or that they “don’t want to know what you had for lunch” really grate.

Guess what? Sometimes I don’t want to know that you went to the laundromat or that you think chickpeas are gross or “OMG Baltar is totally the 5th cylon!”   If that’s the case, I just won’t follow you or I’ll ignore the tweet.  I’m not going to write a highfalutin article chock full of piss n’ apathy, telling you how you should be doing it.  You know the ones with titles like:   “You must do how I do it or you suck.” or “Don’t use Twitter this way because I’m totally an elitist prick and I will think less of you.”   Or… you know, whatever they’re called… they just irk me.  Can I do anything about it other than gripe to you fine people?  No. But I certainly feel better about it.

And, I suppose this is what those folks are doing, too, but I’m not applying any level of expertise to my rant. I’m not pretending to be some kind of guru on social networking and how it ‘should be done’.  I’m just so sick of hearing about how Twitter is “lame” or Facebook is “stupid”. I think it insults the people who enjoy it and belittles the efforts of those who are trying to embrace technology in a way that’s comfortable for them.

We all have things we like or we don’t like about blogging, social networks, web applications, etc. They’re called opinions and they’re totally valid.   But unless you’re paying for it, either don’t use it or sack up and quit talking down to us like we care what you think.