I'm not going to lie, I was very concerned yesterday about the Xanga outage. I went a little out of control on my Twitter. My heart was filled with fear and pain. Do you realize how dangerous that was? Do you realize how many surface relationships could have been severed? What if it had been permanent?
You may have been deprived of me for all time!!!

Imagine a world without my posts--no wit and wisdom to amuse you while you're waiting for something more interesting to do! No thoughts recycled from better authors and speakers! Imagine, no more hurried one-line comments to comfort you when you write a depressed post! No more cheesy minis selected by my Greek fingers! Think of the time I lavish on you mortals! No more instant messages and phone calls for those of you in my fan club! (Susan, you haven't paid your $5.99 this month. No more IM's for you!) CAN YOU BEAR THE THOUGHT OF NO MORE GREEK IN YOUR LIFE? The very thought gives me chills of confusion and searing-hot penultimate pain of persecution, at the same time.

But thankfully, there is a way for you to show your gratitude still. Xanga remains open for another day for you to lavish me with respect and honor. Empty your pocketbooks! Upload your best photos and posts! Yesterday may have been American Thanksgiving. But today is the day to give thanks for Greek. Give thanks for me now, my readers! I accept Visa AND American Express. Post your odes and orisons today, or, if they are a bit too personal for public perusal, knowwhatImeanwinkwinknodnod, send them to xangagreek@gmail.com . Let your appreciation and worship be known while there is still time! Grovel at my feet! I await your respectful tokens of obeisance.

(Thanks to vanedave and curtainsopen posts for the inspiration).

Tina aka Tsh44 decided to share with us her experience of being pregnant at 15. I highly recommend you read this, no matter what your position on the debate is. It's so good, I posted even though I was going to take a week off from posting!

http://tsh44.xanga.com/716981214/memory-lane---an-abortion-story-part-1/

and then to read parts 2-5, click http://tsh44.xanga.com/ and scroll up from the bottom.

Ok, off to work hard again. By the way, I'm going to start buying people Xanga Premium and maybe buy it for myself. It's not that expensive, and I want to support Xanga and have some spare cash nowadays. Just a thought.

Just a friendly reminder--I'm writing towards a primarily Christian audience for this series. So when I say "we Christians should",  I don't mean to say you're all Christians or that non-Christians should do what I say. Non-Christians are welcome to comment. Keep it civil, all.

Xanga was my first true social network. I had been involved on forum boards when I was a teen, but I had never joined any real social network before Xanga. When I first joined in 2004, I found that few of my friends were really on here. Then I started looking for new friends. I realized that with search, I could find whoever I wanted to befriend. So I looked for people that I thought were interesting, mostly focusing on Christian females. Hey, I'm honest! haha.

However, over time, I realized there were a few drawbacks to Xanga. First, most of Xanga is female, and the male writers often seem more interested in talking to said females rather than other guys. So in the old days, if I wanted to talk about sports or cars or whatever, no one seemed to respond. Second, there is no chat feature on Xanga. Over time, I really got tired of waiting breathlessly for Juanita234325 to reply to my 3 paragraph comment...some 10 hours later.

So, without even really thinking about it, I gravitated towards two other social networks that would balance that out. We'll call them GuysWorld and ChatSphere. And I had fun hanging out on both. I felt GuysWorld helped balance me out and took care of the manly needs Xanga couldn't, and ChatSphere allowed for direct real-time communication with people.

However, I made one small change on both compared to Xanga...or was it small? On Xanga, I really think about peoples' morals or life approach before befriending them. That doesn't mean Christian-only, but it does mean no liars, no sexual deviants (Prude, Proud, and Loud, baby! hahaha) and no arrogant fools. However, on GuysWorld and ChatSphere, I didn't have blogs to read, and so I just befriended whoever. 

It shouldn't have mattered who I hung out with. It's not like I was there THAT often (maybe?!). It was just a hobby! I was just having fun! But suddenly, I struggle with new temptations I never had before, and I think it's because of those two sites. I now have to watch my language more--I'm much more tempted to swear than ever before. Yet overall, my life is better than ever before, so there's no good reason for the extra anger. I tried to think about why..and quite honestly, I think it's GuysWorld, where people have no problem dropping f-bombs. And because of ChatSphere, I'm much less likely to trust that people are who they say they are. I've seen way too many people taking on a persona, and so I am less likely to take words at face value. I feel less honest myself.

Quite honestly, I still can't believe this happened. ME?! Mr. Different? Mr. Smart-and-Independent? Mr. Anti-Peer-Pressure? I let those losers get to me and change me?! I should have gotten to them! Forgive my narcissism, sigh.

So what's the takeaway here in Fighting For Faith? Retreat to a monastery with only fellow Christians?! No, no, a 1000 times no! But we have to be aware that the people we hang out with shape our world view, even when it's  frivolous Internet folk. It has an impact on our morality and quality of life. I'm NOT suggesting paranoia. I'm just saying, sometimes we have to fight so hard for faith because NONE of our friends are fighting for any sort of moral values! let alone faith. And if that's the case, it's time to get some new friends!

Being a Christian is a critical part of who we are. If we don't feel we can express our Christianity with our friends, and we find ourselves being pulled to be more like them, it does not help us maintain who we are. If our friends resent our morals and claim that we are repressed prudes, are they really friends? I love having friends who don't share my views. They teach me a lot! But I also refuse to allow myself to be corrupted by my friends. Non-Christian friends and Christian friends alike have to be quality people who care for others and who attempt to be honest and fair. You may say "But that means you're making your faith more important than me!" But I say, my faith is a part of me. It rescued me from many problems and mistakes. It's not "that church I go to once a week", it's "Those prayers I utter, those verses I recite, that love I receive." Also, why do YOU want me to accommodate you being such a lying, thieving douc...argh, stupid GuysWorld, haha, never mind.

So unfortunately, I need to cut back on my time at GuysWorld and ChatSphere, perhaps even quit. They are frivolous, fun choices, not fundamental constants of life. I owe them nothing. I can certainly find other things to do with my time that don't make me feel like my beliefs are challenged at every turn. This is a hard post for me to write. It really hurts when you realize that a fun site, and the people who made it fun, are actually doing you more harm than good. But when it happens...you have to let it go. Bad company is contagious.