By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-03-23 17:52:28 | Word Count: 664
I wish Twitter a Happy 5th Birthday like I’d wish it to a dear friend that I’ve grown to know and love these past few years. Twitter you’ve been good to me, to say the very least. You’ve shown me more than I thought I’d ever see (and in some cases had any desire to see). You’ve answered many lingering questions and offered advice during the times it was much needed. You’ve exposed me to a world far beyond the one that I’ve been afforded the chance to live. You’ve molded me in so many ways, Twitter, and on this day of celebrating your existence I just want to say thank you.
It all started about a 2 years ago when I first heard mention of your name. I was admittedly apprehensive to get to know you at first. I mean your mere concept was off-putting to me if, I could be so honest. Just the whole idea of following and being followed went against everything my mom had taught me up until this point so I didn’t really know what to think. You have to imagine that referring to myself as a follower of anyone would be a bit off-putting. I forced myself to look past the lingo, Twitter, and I really tried to get to know you. Even more importantly, you tried to get to know me. So what you only offered me 140 characters at a time to express myself. The fact that you wanted to know the most trivial things that I thought, did, believed, loved, hated or simply wanted to say means more to me than you’ll ever know.
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I’ve put myself out there and you haven’t judged me. You’re just been there. Open outlet, no censors, just there, waiting on me to confide in you and I cherish that. Well, before I get ahead of myself there has been a time or two when I’ve tried to reach out to you but you said there were too many people reaching out at once so you didn’t have the room (or “capacity,” in your words) to deal with me at the moment but I won’t hold that against you. I’m sure you were only doing the best you could with what you had. There was also that one time when something I said to you was repeated many more times than I would’ve liked. You called it a “technical difficulty” but I think maybe you were just in one of those moods of yours. We all have our days so this I won’t hold this against you either.
I’m not here to talk about our runs-ins in the past. I’m here to celebrate the present and offer hope for our future. I have no plans on going anywhere and hopefully you feel the same. I’ve grown to love you; I can even say that I trust you. I trust that you’ll be here. I trust that you’ll hear me out. I trust that you won’t judge me for being myself. I trust that your mission is to serve me and that’s exactly how I like it. So here’s to you: Happy birthday, Twitter, my loveâ€"wishing you many, many more.
